Isogonal deformation of discrete plane curves and discrete Burgers hierarchy (Q2364724)

The aim of this paper is to study the deformation of plane curves in the similarity geometry, which is a Klein geometry associated with the linear conformal group. It is known that continuous deformations of smooth curves are described by the Burgers hierarchy. The authors formulate discrete deformations of discrete plane curves in the similarity geometry described by the discrete Burgers hierarchy as isogonal deformations in which each angle of adjascent segments is preserved. The lattice intervals of the hierarchy are generalized to arbitrary functions of corresponding independent variables. Using this formulation, they construct explicit formulas of curves for both smooth and discrete cases. They note that the complex Burgers equation and its discrete analogue also arise in the curve deformations in complex hyperbola, where the Hamiltonian formulation of the deformation of smooth curves is discussed [\textit{A. Fujioka} and \textit{T. Kurose}, Osaka J. Math. 45, No. 4, 1057--1065 (2008; Zbl 1175.35122)]. The paper is organized as follows : the first section is an introduction to the subject. In section 2, the authors give a brief summary of deformation of smooth plane curves in the similarity geometry, and they see that the Burgers hierarchy naturally arises as the equations for the similarity curvature. They also construct the explicit formula for the family of plane curves corresponding to the shock wave solutions to the Burgers equation. In section 3, they discretize the whole theory described in section 2 so that the deformations are governed by the discrete Burgers hierarchy. In addition, formulations of the Burgers and the discrete Burgers hierarchies are discussed in detail in appendix.