On the moduli spaces of multipolygonal linkages in the plane (Q857043)

A polygonal linkage can be considered as two free linkages with initial and terminal vertices identified. As its generalization one can consider the linkages formed from three free linkages with initial and terminal vertices identified, and the resulting linkage is called a multipolygonal linkage. In this paper the author studies the geometric and topological properties of moduli spaces of multipolygonal linkages embedded in \(\mathbb R^2\). In particular, he proves that this space is a compact Hausdorff real algebraic variety and that it becomes a compact smooth manifold under some conditions. Moreover, he computes the dimension in the latter case, and he also investigates several properties of multipolygonal linkages (e.g. the fibered product of multipolygonal linkages, the disjoint union of polygonal moduli spaces, connectedness, union modulo a subspace, bundle structure, topological type) and multiquadrilateral linkages as a generalization of multipolygonal linkages.