Minimizing closed geodesics via critical points of the uniform energy (Q727702)

A \textit{\(1/k\)-geodesic} on a Riemannian manifold \(M\) is a closed geodesic, say of length \(\ell\), which is minimal on any interval of length \(\ell/k\). The \textit{uniform energy} of a finite sequence of points of \(M\) is the sum of squared distances between successive points, including the squared distance of the last point to the first. A finite sequence of points is \textit{balanced} if the successive distances are all equal, including that of the last point to the first, and there is a tangent vector \(\xi_i\) at each point \(x_i\) so that \(e^{\xi_i}=x_{i+1}\) and \(e^{-\xi_i}=x_{i-1}\) (again including first and last points cyclically). The author proves that \(1/k\)-geodesics give rise to balanced sequences and vice versa. He uses this result to prove that the balanced sequences survive Gromov-Hausdorff convergence of compact Riemannian manifolds, perhaps converging to the trivial class. He proves and uses a result of independent interest on the differentiability of the exponential map on any complete Riemannian manifold.