A decomposition theorem of the Möbius energy I: decomposition and Möbius invariance (Q487290)

Let \(f: \mathbb R/{\mathcal L}\mathbb Z\ni s\mapsto f(s)\in\mathbb R^n\) be a closed curve in \(\mathbb R^n\) with total length \(\mathcal L\), where \(s\) is an arc-length parameter. Denote the distance between \(f(s_1)\) and \(f(s_2)\) along the closed curve by \(\mathcal D(f(s_1),f(s_2))\). The Möbius energy \(\mathcal E\) is defined as \[ \mathcal E(f)=\text{p.v.}\int\int\left(\frac{1}{\|f(s_1),f(s_2)\|^2_{\mathbb R^n}} -\frac{1}{\mathcal D (f(s_1),f(s_2))^2}\right)\text{d}s_1\text{d}s_2,\leqno(1) \] where \(\text{p.v.}\int\int=\lim_{\varepsilon\to +0}\int\int_{|s_1-s_2|>\varepsilon}\) is Cauchy's principal value. In this work the authors establish a decomposition of \(\mathcal E\) as \[ {\mathcal E}(f)={\mathcal E}_1(f)+{\mathcal E}_2(f)+4, \] where \[ {\mathcal E}_i(f)=\int\int_{(\mathbb R/\mathcal L \mathbb Z)^2}\mathcal M_i(f)\text{d} s_1\text{d} s_2 \] and \(\mathcal M_i\) is the energy density of \({\mathcal E}_i\). Using this decomposition an alternative proof of the Möbius invariance is given and the invariance of each part of decomposition is discussed.