Geodesics orbiting a singularity (Q6181314)

The authors study the behaviour of geodesics on Riemannian manifolds near an isolated conical or cuspidal singularity. The precise definition is as follows: Let \(Y\) be a compact manifold of any dimension with the coordinates \((y^i)\), equipped with a Riemannian metric \(\sum h_{ij}(r,y) dy^i dy^j\) depending smoothly on \(r \in [0, R)\) for some \(R>0\). A generalized warped product metric on \((0,R) \times Y\) is a smooth Riemannian metric of the form \[ g = dr^2 + f^2(r) \sum h_{ij}(r,y) dy^i dy^j, \] where \(r \in (0,R)\), the function \(f: (0,R) \to (0,+\infty)\) is smooth. The authors are interested in the case that \(f(r) \to 0\) as \(r \to 0\) while the metric \(h\) stays non-degenerate. One may complete the metric \(g\) at \(r=0\) by adding a single point, which is the isolated singularity. Further, it is assumed that \(f\) extends to a continuously differentiable map \(f: [0, R) \to [0,+\infty)\), \(f(0)=0\) and \(f\) is convex. Under the above assumptions, we have either a conical singularity (if \(f'(0)>0\)) or a cuspidal singularity (if \(f'(0)=0\)). The authors study geodesics in the metric \(g\). They show that geodesics entering a small neighbourhood of the singularity either hit the singularity or approach it to a smallest distance \(\delta>0\) and then move away from it, winding around the singularity a number of times. In the second case, the limiting of geodesics as \(\delta \to 0\) is studied. In the cuspidal case, the number of windings goes to infinity as \(\delta \to 0\), and the asymptotic behaviour of this number is calculated. Moreover, some other geometric properties of conical and cuspidal singularities are discussed.