On the bicycle transformation and the filament equation: results and conjectures (Q2400271)

This article is concerned with the geometry of rear track \(\gamma\) and front track \(\Gamma\) of a simple bicycle model. The bicycle is represented by an oriented line segment of fixed length \(\ell\) where the rear end represents the fixed wheel. If the front end follows the front track \(\Gamma\), the rear end follows \(\gamma\) in such a way that the oriented line segment is always tangent to \(\gamma\). This model not only makes sense in the Euclidean plane but also in Euclidean, spherical, or hyperbolic spaces. Curve \(\gamma\) and length \(\ell\) determine two possible front tracks \(\Gamma_1\) and \(\Gamma_2\), each corresponding to one orientation of the normal bundle. One says that \(\Gamma_1\) and \(\Gamma_2\) are in ``bicycle correspondence''. Conversely, \(\Gamma\) and \(\ell\) determine \(\gamma\) only if an initial direction of the line segment is prescribed. For a fixed start and end point this gives rise to the monodromy map \(M_{\Gamma,\ell}\) which takes an initial direction to the corresponding terminal direction. After recalling some preliminaries and known facts about the bicycle correspondence and the monodromy map (\(M_{\Gamma,\ell}\) is a Möbius transformation, Bianchi permutability holds for curves in bicycle correspondence), the author presents two differential 2-forms on the space of smooth embedded curves that are preserved by the bicycle correspondence. He presents a number of curve integrals that are preserved by the bicycle correspondence, some of which are known to be integrals of a certain curve evolution in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) (the filament equation). Finally, he also investigates relation between the filament equation and curves which are in bicycle transformation with themselves (``Zindler curves''). This search of integral invariants is motivated by the conjecture that the bicycle correspondence in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is Liouville integrable.