Length structures on manifolds with continuous Riemannian metrics

MaRDI QIDQ2353155zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Annegret Y. Burtscher

Publication date 8 July 2015

Published in The New York Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.6962, http://www.emis.de/journals/NYJM/j/2015/21-12.html

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zbMATH Keywords

continuous Riemannian metriclength structure

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Global Riemannian geometry, including pinching (53C20) Global geometric and topological methods (à la Gromov); differential geometric analysis on metric spaces (53C23) Direct methods ((G)-spaces of Busemann, etc.) (53C70)

Abstract: It is well-known that the class of piecewise smooth curves together with a smooth Riemannian metric induces a metric space structure on a manifold. However, little is known about the minimal regularity needed to analyze curves and particularly to study length-minimizing curves where neither classical techniques such as a differentiable exponential map etc. are available nor (generalized) curvature bounds are imposed. In this paper we advance low-regularity Riemannian geometry by investigating general length structures on manifolds that are equipped with Riemannian metrics of low regularity. We generalize the length structure by proving that the class of absolutely continuous curves induces the standard metric space structure. The main result states that the arc-length of absolutely continuous curves is the same as the length induced by the metric. For the proof we use techniques from the analysis of metric spaces and employ specific smooth approximations of continuous Riemannian metrics. We thus show that when dealing with lengths of curves, the metric approach for low-regularity Riemannnian manifolds is still compatible with standard definitions and can successfully fill in for lack of differentiability.

Review text

The author studies minimal regularity conditions imposed on the Riemannian metric to bypass the lack of differentiability of the exponential map in the usual analysis of length-minimizing curves. The main result asserts that, for continuous Riemannian metrics and for the class of absolutely continuous curves (in the classical sense), the usual length of the curve, the length of the curve defined by polygonal approximations, and the length of the curve as the integral of the metric derivative, are the same. The paper is written very clearly and the proofs are transparent.

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(39)

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