On the moduli space of polygons in the Euclidean plane (Q5917751)

In the paper the authors study the moduli spaces of polygons with fixed side length in the Euclidean plane \(E^2\). Two polygons are considered as equivalent if there exists an orientation preserving similarity of \(C\cong E^2\) that sends one polygon to the other. Thus, the moduli space of the \(n\)-gon without restriction son the side-lengths is constructed as the set of \(n\)-tuples \((e_1, \dots, e_n)\) -- the \(n\)-tuple of edges of the polygon -- modulo the multiplication by a complex number. Since the authors allow all degeneration of the polygon, except for the degeneration to a point, the moduli space without side-length restriction is the projective \((n - 2)\)-space \(CP^{n - 2}\). If one chooses representatives of \(CP^{n - 2}\) that correspond to polygons with perimeter 1, then the map from \(CP^{n - 2}\) to \(R^n\) assigning to the \(n\)-tuple of edges the \(n\)-tuple of side-lengths is well defined. Now the preimage of a point \(r \in R^n\) is called the moduli space \(M_r\) of \(n\)-gons with fixed side-lengths \(r\). The first main result of the paper says that for \(r = (r_1, \dots, r_n)\) the moduli space \(M_r\) is disconnected if and only if there exist pairwise different indices \(i\), \(j\) and \(k\) such that \(r_i + r_j > 1/2\), \(r_i + r_k > 1/2\) and \(r_k + r_j > 1/2\). For a pentagon and a hexagon the authors give an exhaustive description on the topological structure (up to diffeomorphism) of \(M_r\) in case \(M_r\) is nonsingular. Namely, in this case for a pentagon \(M_r\) is a compact oriented surface of genus \(2 (l(r) - 3)\), where \(l(r)\) is some number that is given in terms of metric properties of the vector \(r\). The result for the hexagon in the case of nonsingular \(M_r\) is more subtle and there are some subcases. Therefore, we do not want to reproduce this result here. Most of the results provided in the paper are not new, though the authors have developed them independently. In a section on ``Previous Results'' the other sources for the results are listed. Recently, there has been considerable interest in moduli spaces or realization spaces of polytopes [see \textit{J. Richter-Gebert} and \textit{G. M. Ziegler}, Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 32, No. 4, 403-413 (1995)]. But in their considerations metrical properties do not play any role. Instead they focus on the combinatorial structure. Motivation for the study of moduli spaces of polygons with fixed side-lengths is derived from the work of \textit{P. Deligne} and \textit{G. D. Mostow} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Etud. 63, 5-89 (1986; Zbl 0615.22008)] and Thurston and others in hyperbolic geometry.