The length of the second shortest geodesic

DOI10.4171/CMH/179MaRDI QIDQ843197zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Alexander Nabutovsky, Regina Rotman

Publication date 29 September 2009

Published in Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL http://www.ems-ph.org/journals/show_pdf.php?issn=0010-2571&vol=84&iss=4&rank=2

zbMATH Keywords

closed manifolddistinct geodesicsfillinggeodesic loopshort geodesic

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Geodesics in global differential geometry (53C22) Global geometric and topological methods (à la Gromov); differential geometric analysis on metric spaces (53C23) Variational problems in applications to the theory of geodesics (problems in one independent variable) (58E10)

Review text

In the paper [J. Differ. Geom. 78, No.~3, 497--519 (2008; Zbl 1143.53038)], the second author proved that, in a closed \(n\)-dimensional Riemannian manifold \(M\) of diameter \(d\) there exists a geodesic loop of length \(\leq 2d\) based at any \(x\in M\). In this paper, the authors prove a beautiful generalization of that result, by showing that given \(x,y\in M\), there exist at least two distinct geodesics connecting them of length \(\leq 2qd\), where \(q=\min \{\pi_i(M)\neq 0\}\), i.e. \(\pi_q\) is the first nontrivial homotopy group of \(M\). Their proof is based on two results of independent interest that show how to construct suitable continuous maps (coherent \(N\)-fillings, see [J. Differ. Geom. 18, 1--147 (1983; Zbl 0515.53037)] by \textit{M. Gromov}) for families of continuous maps joining \(x,y\).

Recommendations

• Lengths of geodesics between two points on a Riemannian manifold
• Length of geodesics and quantitative Morse theory on loop spaces
• Length of geodesics on a two-dimensional sphere
• Short geodesic segments between two points on a closed Riemannian manifold
• The length of a shortest geodesic net on a closed Riemannian manifold

Cited in

(13)

• Short geodesic segments between two points on a closed Riemannian manifold
• The length of a shortest geodesic loop at a point
• The minimal length of a closed geodesic net on a Riemannian manifold with a nontrivial second homology group
• Geodesic loops and periodic geodesics on a Riemannian manifold diffeomorphic to \(S^{3}\)
• Short geodesic loops on complete Riemannian manifolds with a finite volume
• Lengths of geodesics between two points on a Riemannian manifold
• Length of geodesics and quantitative Morse theory on loop spaces
• Second shortest vertical geodesics of manifolds obtained from the Whitehead link
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1751648 (Why is no real title available?)
• On the number of shortest paths between points on manifolds
• Relative systoles of relative-essential 2-complexes
• Flowers on Riemannian manifolds
• Hurwitz quaternion order and arithmetic Riemann surfaces

This page was built for publication: The length of the second shortest geodesic

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q843197)