Three-webs from circles (Q6549010)

The article proposes a new necessary condition for three-webs of curves to be locally diffeomorphic to three families of parallel lines. Moreover, if the curves in the web are circles, then this condition enforces that the web is a classical example by Blaschke. The classification of all regular three-webs of circles is an open problem due to \textit{W. Blaschke} and \textit{G. Bol} [Geometrie der Gewebe. Topologische Fragen der Differentialgeometrie. Berlin: Julius Springer (1938; Zbl 0020.06701)] and motivation for the article under consideration.\N\NInformally, a three-web consist of three smooth one-parameter families of curves in the plane together with a domain \(D\subset\mathbb{R}^2\) such that the curves intersect pairwise transversal at each point in this domain. Two three-webs are equivalent if there exists a local diffeomorphism between the domains transferring the curves of one web into curves of the other. A three-web is called regular if it is equivalent to a three-web whose curves are lines in the \(xy\)-plane that for some constant \(c\in\mathbb{R}\) are defined by either \(x=c\), \(y=c\) or \(x+y=c\). The boundary of a three-web is the set of points in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) where two curves in this web do not intersect transversally or a point contained by infinitely many curves in the web.\N\NThe article describes a topological procedure. The input of this procedure is a three-web~\(W\) together with three curves in this web and a point~\(P\) on one of these curves. The output are six curves in the web \(W\). Theorem~3 states that if the input consists of boundary curves of a regular three-web, then two of the six output curves contain the point~\(P\).\N\NTheorem~4 asserts that if \(W\) is a three-web whose curves are circles and whose boundary contains a curve and two points, then this web is regular if and only if it is equivalent to a three-web whose curves are circles in \(\mathbb{R}^2\) that contain exactly two of three fixed non-collinear points.