Higher dimensional lemniscates: the geometry of r particles in n-space with logarithmic potentials

DOI10.2422/2036-2145.201508_001zbMATH Open1393.14054arXiv1506.01919OpenAlexW2962968969MaRDI QIDQ4604580FDOQ4604580

Authors: Ingrid Bauer, Fabrizio Catanese, Antonio J. Di Scala 

Publication date: 2 March 2018

Published in: ANNALI SCUOLA NORMALE SUPERIORE - CLASSE DI SCIENZE (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We prove some basic theorems concerning lemniscate configurations in an Euclidean space of dimension $ngeq3$. Lemniscates are defined as follows. Given m points $w_j$ in $mathbb{R}^n$, consider the function $F(x)$ which is the product of the distances $|x-w_j|$: the singular level sets of the function $F$ are called lemniscates. We show via complex analysis that the critical points of $F$ have Hessian of positivity at least $(n-1)$. This implies that, if $F$ is a Morse function, then $F$ has only local minima and saddle points with negativity 1. The critical points lie in the convex span of the points $|w_j|$ (these are absolute minima): but we made also the discovery that $F$ can also have other local minima, and indeed arbitrarily many. We discuss several explicit examples. We finally prove in the appendix that all critical points are isolated.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01919

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zbMATH Keywords

Morse functionlogarithmic potentiallemniscatetopology of real algebraic varieties

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Computer graphics; computational geometry (digital and algorithmic aspects) (68U05) Topology of real algebraic varieties (14P25) Plurisubharmonic functions and generalizations (32U05) Metric geometry (51F99) Topological aspects of complex singularities: Lefschetz theorems, topological classification, invariants (32S50) Dynamics of a system of particles, including celestial mechanics (70F99) Low-dimensional dynamical systems (37Exx)

Cited In (4)

• Flow box decomposition for gradients of univariate polynomials, billiards on the Riemann sphere, tree-like configurations of vanishing cycles for \(A_{n}\) curve singularities and geometric cluster monodromy
• Shape control of 3D lemniscates
• Upper bounds for the number of isolated critical points via the Thom-Milnor theorem
• Reflections on the lemniscate of Bernoulli: the forty-eight faces of a mathematical gem

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