Geodesic paths of circles in the plane (Q2430528)

In the Fréchet manifold \({\mathcal E}\) of all positively oriented embeddings of the circle into the Euclidean plane, equipped with a suitable weak Riemannian metric, the author considers the submanifold \({\mathcal C}\) of all constant speed circles. He also considers the situation for the quotient spaces of embeddings modulo orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of the circle. The main findings in the paper have to do with geodesic paths of circles in \({\mathcal C}\) and in the corresponding quotient space. The paper contains no motivation for the study.