A metric on shape space with explicit geodesics (Q931059)

Two of the authors studied several classes of Riemannian metrics on spaces of shapes, see [\textit{P. Michor} and \textit{D. Mumford}, Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal. 23, No.~1, 74--113 (2007; Zbl 1116.58007)]. In this paper, Sobolev 1-type metric is studied as a specific metric of spaces of shapes, and explict descriptions of geodesics and computaitons of sectional curvatures are given. As a consequence, the space of closed curves modulo rotation and change of variables is shown to have positive curvature. Throughout the paper, curves mean curves in the complex plane. Identify the tangent space of the space of immersions of curves to the complex plane modulo translation with the set of vector field \(h:S^1\to C\) along \(c\) modulo constant vector fields. The specific metric \(G_c(h,h)\) is \(\frac{1}{\ell(c)}\int_{S^1}|D_sh|^2\,ds\). The geodesic equation on this metric is computed in the Appendix. The key fact on this metric is that it is induced from the usual \(L^2\)-metric by the map \(\Phi:(e,f)\to\frac{1}{2}\int_0^\theta (e(x);f(x))^2\,dx\) (Theorem 2.7.). \(\Phi(e,f)\) is an immersion if \(Z(e,f)=\{\theta:e(\theta)=f(\theta)=0\}=\emptyset\), and periodic if \((e,f)\) is an orthonormal pair. So the property of \(G_c\) is related to the property of classical manifolds such as sphere, complex projective space, Stiefel manifolds and Grassmann manifolds. On the other hand, owing to the exclusion of \(Z(e,f)\), \(G_c\) is not a complete metric. To overcome this difficulty, authors introduce a Fréchet equivalence based on a monotone relation (3.5). As a price of this extension of equivalence, geodesics may have curves with singularities, which are shown in examples. Applying these general discussions, the construction of geodesics and the calculation of sectional curvatures are presented in Sections 4 and 5. The existence problem of geodesics reduces to a variational problem for a nonlinear functional. As for this problem, the authors refer to \textit{A. Trouvé} and \textit{L. Younes} [SIAM J. Control Optim. 39, No.~4, 1112--1135 (2000; Zbl 0983.49009)]. The calculation of the sectional curvature uses the formula of \textit{B. O'Neill} [Mich. Math. J. 13, 459--469 (1966; Zbl 0145.18602)], together with explicit calculation of O'Neill's correction term ((20) and (21)). Geodesic distance defined in \S 4 is computed in a short time by dynamic programming. This is explained in \S 6 [cf. \textit{A. Trouvé} and \textit{L. Younes}, Lect. Notes Comput. Sci. 1842. 573--587 (2000; Zbl 1045.68945)].