Self-convexity and curvature (Q290787)

Given a Riemannian manifold \((M,g)\) with submanifold \(N\), let \(\rho\) be the inverse squared distance to \(N\). Define a new Riemannian metric \(g'\) by scaling the original Riemannian metric: \(g'=\rho^{-2}g\). The author asks whether the function \(-\log \rho\) is convex along all \(g'\)-geodesics. He proves that this is the case if the sectional curvature of \(g\) is non-negative. He also proves that this is not the case if \(g\) has a point at which all sectional curvatures are negative. He explains the relevance of this question to the development of fast homotopy methods to compute points on complex algebraic varieties.