No label defined (Q4518508)

The nonlinear spline is the extremal curve of the second order variational problem corresponding to the functional \(\int \kappa^2ds\) where \(\kappa \) is the geodesic curvature of the path and \(ds\) is the arc-length element. This problem is a singular one with vanishing Hessian. To overcome this difficulty the authors use the procedure of parameter elimination. According to this procedure one of the spatial coordinates is taken as a new parameter. In such a way the initial Lagrangian is projected onto a ``deparametrized'' one. In the case of nonlinear splines in the 3-dimensional space, which is considered in this paper, the ``deparametrized'' Lagrangian is regular. Introducing a natural Hamiltonian formulation to the problem the authors use Noether invariants to reduce the corresponding system to a nonlinear autonomous one on the plane. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0937.00045].