Affine theory of plane curves (Q2878069)

The authors give some detailed explanation of some notions of basic affine differential geometry of plane curves. In the introduction they give basic historic information on the subject and introduce the affine area of a triangle as an invariant of the group action defined by \(\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb{R})\). The importance of this invariant in the study of the differential geometry of the plane is also explained. In Section 2, using the area of the triangle as an invariant the authors introduce basic notions of affine differential geometry of plane curves such as affine arc length, affine normal and affine curvature. They proceed to characterise conics and prove that if a differentiable curve is parametrized by affine arc length and it has constant affine curvature \(k(s)\), then if \(k(s)=0\), the curve is a parabola, if \(k(s)>0\), the curve is an ellipse and \(k(s)<0\), the curve is a hyperbola.NEWLINENEWLINEGiven a plane differentiable convex curve \(c\) and a point \(p\) on the curve, the \textit{central curve} in \(p\) is the set of middle points of segment lines with end points on the curve \(c\) and parallel to the tangent line at \(c\) in \(p\). The authors prove that if all central curves of a plane convex curve are straight lines, then the curve is a conic.NEWLINENEWLINEIn the third section of the article the authors introduce a variational problem and define an operator \(J\) related to the area and the perimeter of an ovaloid \(x:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}\) (differentiable convex, plane closed curve), and prove that the following statements are equivalent: NEWLINE{\parindent=0.6cm\begin{itemize}\item[(i)] \(x(\mathbb{R})\) is an ellipse of curvature \(k(s)=\frac{2\pi}{L}^2\) (\(L\) is the length of \(x\)), \item[(ii)] \(\frac{dJ}{dt}=0\) for each deformation \(x_t=x+\Phi _t x''\) (\(\Phi\) is a given deformation that preserves the convexity) \item[(ii)] \(\frac{dJ}{dt}=0\) for each deformation \(x_t\) with constant area.NEWLINENEWLINE\end{itemize}}NEWLINEThe article ends with the proof of Theorem 5 that establishes that within all ovaloids with constant area the ellipse and only the ellipse has the largest affine perimeter. In general one gets \(8\pi ^2\geq L^3\).NEWLINENEWLINEThis article was published in \textit{La Gazeta}, the monthly publication of the Real Sociedad Matematica Española, and it is aimed to be read not just by specialist on the subject. The authors achieved the difficult task to explain the subject to a large group of readers with basic understanding in undergraduate mathematics.