Geodesic complexity of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds (Q6167512)

In the present paper the invariant \(\text{GC}(X,g)\) means the geodesic complexity of a metric space \((X,g)\), see [\textit{D. Recio-Mitter}, J. Appl. Comput. Topol. 5, No. 1, 141--178 (2021; Zbl 1485.53050)]. The authors study geodesic complexity \(\text{GC}(M,g)\) for certain complete Riemannian manifolds \((M,g)\). They use the subspace versions of geodesic complexity. Let \((M,g)\) be a complete Riemannian manifold and \(A\subset M\times M\). The \textit{subspace geodesic complexity} of \(A\), denoted by \(\mathrm{GC}_{M}(A)\), is the minimum \(r\in\mathbb{N}\) for which there are \(r\) pairwise disjoint locally compact subsets \(E_1,\ldots,E_r\subset M\times M\) such that \(A\subset\bigcup_{i=1}^rE_i\) and, for each \(i\in\{1,2,\ldots,r\}\), there exists a continuous geodesic motion planner \(s_i:E_i\to GM\). Note that the authors use the nonreduced version. Given \(p\in M\) and \(B\subset M\), we further put \(\mathrm{GC}_p(B)=\mathrm{GC}_{M}(\{p\}\times B)\). Before presenting the main statements of this paper, we recall some preliminaries. Let \((M,g)\) be a complete Riemannian manifold. \begin{itemize} \item (Definition 2.5) Let \(p\in M\). \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] Let \(\gamma:[0,+\infty)\to M\) be a unit-speed geodesic with \(\gamma(0)=p\) and \(\gamma'(0)\in T_pM\). The \textit{cut time of} \(\gamma\) is given by \[ t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)=\sup\{t>0:~\gamma\vert_{[0,t]} \text{ is minimal}\}. \] If \(t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)\) is finite, then \(t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)\gamma'(0)\in T_pM\) is a \textit{tangent cut point of} \(p\) and \(\gamma\left(t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)\right)\in M\) is a \textit{cut point of }\(p\)\textit{ along} \(\gamma\). \item[(b)] The set of all cut points of \(p\) is called the \textit{cut locus of} \(p\) and denoted by \(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\). The set of all tangent cut points of \(p\) is called the \textit{tangent cut locus of} \(p\) and denoted by \(\widetilde{\mathrm{Cut}}_p(M)\). \end{itemize} \item (Definition 4.4) Let \(B\subset M\) be a subset. A \textit{stratification} of \(B\) \textit{of depth} \(N\in\mathbb{N}\) is a family \((S_1,\ldots,S_N)\) of locally closed and pairwise disjoint subsets of \(M\) such that the following conditions hold: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] \(B=\bigcup_{i=1}^NS_i\) and \(\overline{S}_i=\bigcup_{j=i}^NS_j\) for all \(i\in\{1,2,\ldots,N\}\). \item[(ii)] Let \(i,j\in\{1,2,\ldots,N\}\). If \(Z_j\) is a connected component of \(S_j\) and \(Z_i\) is a connected component of \(S_i\) with \(Z_j\cap \overline{Z}_i\neq\varnothing\), then \(Z_j\subset \overline{Z}_i\). \end{itemize} \item (Definition 4.6) Let \(p\in M\) and let \(S=(S_1,\ldots,S_N)\) be a stratification of \(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\). Let \(K\subset T_pM\) denote the union of the tangent cut locus \(\widetilde{\mathrm{Cut}}_p(M)\) with the domain of injectivity of \(\mathrm{exp}_p\) and let \[ \mathrm{exp}_K=\mathrm{exp}_p\vert_K:K\to M \] denote the restriction. We call \(S\) \textit{inconsistent} if, for all \(i\in\{2,3,\ldots,N\}\) and \(x\in S_i\), there exists an open neighborhood \(U\subset M\) of \(x\) with the following property: Let \(Z_1,\ldots,Z_s\) be the connected components of \(U\cap S_{i-1}\). Then \(x\in\overline{Z}_j\) for all \(j\in\{1,2,\ldots,s\}\) and \[ \widetilde{\mathrm{Cut}}_p(M)\cap\mathrm{exp}_p^{-1}(\{x\})\cap\bigcap_{j=1}^s\overline{\mathrm{exp}_K^{-1}(Z_j)}=\varnothing. \] \end{itemize} The authors present a lower bound on geodesic complexity from the Riemannian structures of manifolds. \textbf{Theorem 4.8} Let \((M,g)\) be a closed Riemannian manifold. Assume that there exists \(p\in M\) for which \(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\) admits an inconsistent stratification of depth \(N\in\mathbb{N}\). Then \[ \mathrm{GC}(M)\geq\mathrm{GC}_p(M)\geq N+1. \] Furthermore, they present an upper bound for geodesic complexity of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds \textbf{Theorem 5.4} Let \((M,g)\) be a homogeneous Riemannian manifold and let \(p\in M\). Then \[ \mathrm{GC}(M)\leq\mathrm{secat}\left(\mathrm{ev}_p:\mathrm{Isom}(M)\to M\right)\cdot\mathrm{GC}_p\left(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\right)+1. \] Also, they compute the geodesic complexities of two-dimensional flat tori and three-dimensional Berger spheres. \textbf{Theorem} \noindent \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] (Theorem 7.2) Let \(g\) be an arbitrary flat metric on \(T^2\). Then \(\mathrm{GC}(T^2,g)=3\). \item[(ii)] (Theorem 7.7) For all \(\alpha\in(0,\pi/2]\), it holds that \(\mathrm{GC}(M_\alpha)=2\), where \(M_\alpha\) is a Berger sphere. \end{itemize}