On the notions of suborbifold and orbifold embedding (Q894954)

The authors consider the notions of (smooth) suborbifold and orbifold embedding, introduced in some of their previous papers. Their definitions of these notions have certain (minor) particularities compared to the various definitions given by some other authors. The main subject of the paper is the question whether a given suborbifold (of a smooth orbifold) can be realized as the image of an orbifold embedding. A few examples of suborbifolds which do not posses this property are given, and the central theorem of the article gives a characterization of this property in terms of the actions of isotropy groups. As a corollary, the authors obtain the fact that, given two points on a Riemannian orbifold and a length-minimizing (geodesic) curve joining the points, this curve is realizable as the image of a (complete) orbifold embedding.