Geodesic complexity of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds

DOI10.2140/AGT.2023.23.2221MaRDI QIDQ6167512zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Stephan Mescher, Maximilian Stegemeyer

Publication date 7 August 2023

Published in Algebraic \& Geometric Topology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.09215

zbMATH Keywords

cut locus geodesic complexity sectional category topological complexity

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Geodesics in global differential geometry (53C22) Lyusternik-Shnirel'man category of a space, topological complexity à la Farber, topological robotics (topological aspects) (55M30)

Abstract: We study the geodesic motion planning problem for complete Riemannian manifolds and investigate their geodesic complexity, an integer-valued isometry invariant introduced by D. Recio-Mitter. Using methods from Riemannian geometry, we establish new lower and upper bounds on geodesic complexity and compute its value for certain classes of examples with a focus on homogeneous Riemannian manifolds. Methodically, we study properties of stratifications of cut loci and use results on their structures for certain homogeneous manifolds obtained by T. Sakai and others.

Review text

In the present paper the invariant \(\text{GC}(X,g)\) means the geodesic complexity of a metric space \((X,g)\), see [\textit{D. Recio-Mitter}, J. Appl. Comput. Topol. 5, No. 1, 141--178 (2021; Zbl 1485.53050)]. The authors study geodesic complexity \(\text{GC}(M,g)\) for certain complete Riemannian manifolds \((M,g)\). They use the subspace versions of geodesic complexity. Let \((M,g)\) be a complete Riemannian manifold and \(A\subset M\times M\). The \textit{subspace geodesic complexity} of \(A\), denoted by \(\mathrm{GC}_{M}(A)\), is the minimum \(r\in\mathbb{N}\) for which there are \(r\) pairwise disjoint locally compact subsets \(E_1,\ldots,E_r\subset M\times M\) such that \(A\subset\bigcup_{i=1}^rE_i\) and, for each \(i\in\{1,2,\ldots,r\}\), there exists a continuous geodesic motion planner \(s_i:E_i\to GM\). Note that the authors use the nonreduced version. Given \(p\in M\) and \(B\subset M\), we further put \(\mathrm{GC}_p(B)=\mathrm{GC}_{M}(\{p\}\times B)\). Before presenting the main statements of this paper, we recall some preliminaries. Let \((M,g)\) be a complete Riemannian manifold. \begin{itemize} \item (Definition 2.5) Let \(p\in M\). \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] Let \(\gamma:[0,+\infty)\to M\) be a unit-speed geodesic with \(\gamma(0)=p\) and \(\gamma'(0)\in T_pM\). The \textit{cut time of} \(\gamma\) is given by \[ t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)=\sup\{t>0:~\gamma\vert_{[0,t]} \text{ is minimal}\}. \] If \(t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)\) is finite, then \(t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)\gamma'(0)\in T_pM\) is a \textit{tangent cut point of} \(p\) and \(\gamma\left(t_{\mathrm{cut}}(\gamma)\right)\in M\) is a \textit{cut point of }\(p\)\textit{ along} \(\gamma\). \item[(b)] The set of all cut points of \(p\) is called the \textit{cut locus of} \(p\) and denoted by \(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\). The set of all tangent cut points of \(p\) is called the \textit{tangent cut locus of} \(p\) and denoted by \(\widetilde{\mathrm{Cut}}_p(M)\). \end{itemize} \item (Definition 4.4) Let \(B\subset M\) be a subset. A \textit{stratification} of \(B\) \textit{of depth} \(N\in\mathbb{N}\) is a family \((S_1,\ldots,S_N)\) of locally closed and pairwise disjoint subsets of \(M\) such that the following conditions hold: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] \(B=\bigcup_{i=1}^NS_i\) and \(\overline{S}_i=\bigcup_{j=i}^NS_j\) for all \(i\in\{1,2,\ldots,N\}\). \item[(ii)] Let \(i,j\in\{1,2,\ldots,N\}\). If \(Z_j\) is a connected component of \(S_j\) and \(Z_i\) is a connected component of \(S_i\) with \(Z_j\cap \overline{Z}_i\neq\varnothing\), then \(Z_j\subset \overline{Z}_i\). \end{itemize} \item (Definition 4.6) Let \(p\in M\) and let \(S=(S_1,\ldots,S_N)\) be a stratification of \(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\). Let \(K\subset T_pM\) denote the union of the tangent cut locus \(\widetilde{\mathrm{Cut}}_p(M)\) with the domain of injectivity of \(\mathrm{exp}_p\) and let \[ \mathrm{exp}_K=\mathrm{exp}_p\vert_K:K\to M \] denote the restriction. We call \(S\) \textit{inconsistent} if, for all \(i\in\{2,3,\ldots,N\}\) and \(x\in S_i\), there exists an open neighborhood \(U\subset M\) of \(x\) with the following property: Let \(Z_1,\ldots,Z_s\) be the connected components of \(U\cap S_{i-1}\). Then \(x\in\overline{Z}_j\) for all \(j\in\{1,2,\ldots,s\}\) and \[ \widetilde{\mathrm{Cut}}_p(M)\cap\mathrm{exp}_p^{-1}(\{x\})\cap\bigcap_{j=1}^s\overline{\mathrm{exp}_K^{-1}(Z_j)}=\varnothing. \] \end{itemize} The authors present a lower bound on geodesic complexity from the Riemannian structures of manifolds. \textbf{Theorem 4.8} Let \((M,g)\) be a closed Riemannian manifold. Assume that there exists \(p\in M\) for which \(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\) admits an inconsistent stratification of depth \(N\in\mathbb{N}\). Then \[ \mathrm{GC}(M)\geq\mathrm{GC}_p(M)\geq N+1. \] Furthermore, they present an upper bound for geodesic complexity of homogeneous Riemannian manifolds \textbf{Theorem 5.4} Let \((M,g)\) be a homogeneous Riemannian manifold and let \(p\in M\). Then \[ \mathrm{GC}(M)\leq\mathrm{secat}\left(\mathrm{ev}_p:\mathrm{Isom}(M)\to M\right)\cdot\mathrm{GC}_p\left(\mathrm{Cut}_p(M)\right)+1. \] Also, they compute the geodesic complexities of two-dimensional flat tori and three-dimensional Berger spheres. \textbf{Theorem} \noindent \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] (Theorem 7.2) Let \(g\) be an arbitrary flat metric on \(T^2\). Then \(\mathrm{GC}(T^2,g)=3\). \item[(ii)] (Theorem 7.7) For all \(\alpha\in(0,\pi/2]\), it holds that \(\mathrm{GC}(M_\alpha)=2\), where \(M_\alpha\) is a Berger sphere. \end{itemize}

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