On the bicycle transformation and the filament equation: results and conjectures

DOI10.1016/J.GEOMPHYS.2016.05.013MaRDI QIDQ2400271zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Publication date 28 August 2017

Published in Journal of Geometry and Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06455

bicycle correspondence Bäcklund transformation complete integrability filament equation monodromy

Completely integrable infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian and Lagrangian systems, integration methods, integrability tests, integrable hierarchies (KdV, KP, Toda, etc.) (37K10) Relations of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian and Lagrangian dynamical systems with topology, geometry and differential geometry (37K25) Differential geometric aspects in kinematics (53A17) Kinematics of mechanisms and robots (70B15)

Abstract: The paper concerns a simple model of bicycle kinematics: a bicycle is represented by an oriented segment of constant length in n-dimensional space that can move in such a way that the velocity of its rear end is aligned with the segment (the rear wheel is fixed on the bicycle frame). Starting with a closed trajectory of the rear end, one obtains the two respective trajectories of the front end, corresponding to the opposite directions of motion. These two curves are said to be in the bicycle correspondence. Conjecturally, this correspondence is completely integrable; we present a number of results substantiating this conjecture. In dimension three, the bicycle correspondence is the Backlund transformation for the filament equation; we discuss bi-Hamiltonian features of the bicycle correspondence and its integrals.

Review text

This article is concerned with the geometry of rear track \(\gamma\) and front track \(\Gamma\) of a simple bicycle model. The bicycle is represented by an oriented line segment of fixed length \(\ell\) where the rear end represents the fixed wheel. If the front end follows the front track \(\Gamma\), the rear end follows \(\gamma\) in such a way that the oriented line segment is always tangent to \(\gamma\). This model not only makes sense in the Euclidean plane but also in Euclidean, spherical, or hyperbolic spaces. Curve \(\gamma\) and length \(\ell\) determine two possible front tracks \(\Gamma_1\) and \(\Gamma_2\), each corresponding to one orientation of the normal bundle. One says that \(\Gamma_1\) and \(\Gamma_2\) are in ``bicycle correspondence. Conversely, \(\Gamma\) and \(\ell\) determine \(\gamma\) only if an initial direction of the line segment is prescribed. For a fixed start and end point this gives rise to the monodromy map \(M_{\Gamma,\ell}\) which takes an initial direction to the corresponding terminal direction. After recalling some preliminaries and known facts about the bicycle correspondence and the monodromy map (\(M_{\Gamma,\ell}\) is a Möbius transformation, Bianchi permutability holds for curves in bicycle correspondence), the author presents two differential 2-forms on the space of smooth embedded curves that are preserved by the bicycle correspondence. He presents a number of curve integrals that are preserved by the bicycle correspondence, some of which are known to be integrals of a certain curve evolution in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) (the filament equation). Finally, he also investigates relation between the filament equation and curves which are in bicycle transformation with themselves (``Zindler curves). This search of integral invariants is motivated by the conjecture that the bicycle correspondence in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) is Liouville integrable.

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