Total Mean Curvature and Closed Geodesics

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TotalMeanCurvatureandClosedGeodesicsJuanCarlos´AlvarezPaiva

ThepurposeofthisnoteistogiveaproofofthefollowingtheoremandtogivesomeeasyapplicationsofitanditsprooftotheextrinsicgeometryofconvexZollsurfaces.Inwhatfollowswewillusethewordsurfacetomeansmoothclosedsurface,andthewordsstrictlyconvextomeanofpositiveGaussiancurvature.

Theorem1OnastrictlyconvexsurfaceΣ⊂R3thereexistsaclosedgeodesic

whoselengthislessthanorequaltoonehalfthetotalmeancurvatureofΣ.

TheproofsandapplicationsarebasedonaRiemannianversionofGromov’snon-squeezingtheoremandclassicalintegralgeometry.GivenaconvexsurfaceΣ⊂R3andapointqintheunitsphereS2wedenoteby

UΣ(q)theperimeteroftheorthogonalprojectionofΣontoaplaneperpendiculartoq.WeobtainafunctionUΣonthespherewhichisclearlycontinuous,even,andpositive.LetusdenotetheminimumvalueforthisfunctionbyuΣ.Theanalogueofthenon-squeezingtheoremwewishtopresentisthefollowingresult.

Lemma1LetΣ⊂R3beastrictlyconvexsurface.ThereexistsonΣaclosedgeodesicwhoselengthislessthanorequaltouΣ.

Thetheoremfollowsfromthislemmaandthefollowingintegral-geometricchar-acterizationofthetotalmeancurvatureintermsoftheaverageoftheperimeterfunctionoverthesphere.

Lemma2LetΣ⊂R3beastrictlyconvexsurfaceandletH:=1

2π󰀁S2UΣdω.374J.C.´AlvarezPaivaForaproofoflemma2wereferthereadertopages66and67oftheclassicbookofBonnesenandFenchel[3].

1TheBirkhoffInvariantandProofofLemma1WebeginbystatingaslightvariantofBirkhoff’stheoremontheexistenceofatleastoneclosedgeodesiconasurfacediffeomorphictoasphere.Let(S2,g)denotethesphereprovidedwithanarbitraryRiemannianmetric.Iff:S2→Risasmoothfunctionwithonlytwocriticalpoints,wedefine

β(f):=max{lengthoff−1(c):c∈R}.WenowdefinetheBirkhoffinvariant,β,ofthemetricgastheinfimumoverallsuchsmoothfunctionsofthenumbersβ(f).Intuitively,βistheminimumlengthofaclosedstringwhichmaybeslippedoverthesurface(see[2]).TheBirkhoffinvariantisaRiemannianinvariantof(S2,g)resemblingasymplecticcapacity.

Theorem[Birkhoff]Thereexistsaclosedgeodesicon(S2,g)withlengthβ.

Proofoflemma1.If(S2,g)isisometricallyembeddedinR3asastrictlyconvexsurfaceΣwemaycompareβwithβ(hq),wherehqistheheightfunctionoftheconvexsurfaceΣinthedirectionofq∈S2.Fromthiscomparisonitfollowsimmediately

thatβ≤uΣandhencelemma1.UsingtheBirkhoffinvarianttheorem1canbeslightlysharpenedtothefollowingresult:

Theorem1’LetΣbeastrictlyconvexsurfaceinR3.TheBirkhoffinvariantofΣislessthanorequaltoonehalfthetotalmeancurvatureofΣ.

Proof.Usinglemma2andthefactthatUΣ(q)≥uΣwehavethat󰀁ΣHdΣ=12π󰀁S2uΣdω=2uΣ.

Thetheoremfollowsfromtheinequalityβ≤uΣ.

Remark.Duringthefallof1994Gelfandposedthefollowingquestioninhissemi-nar:IsitpossibletolocalizesymplecticinvariantsinthesamewaythattheGauss-BonnettheoremlocalizestheEulercharacteristic?Theorem1’arosefromtryingtounderstandandanswerthisquestion.AlthoughthisresultisbynomeansalocalizationoftheBirkhoffinvariant,itseemstobeastepintherightdirection.Integralgeometrycanbeused,muchinthesamewayithasbeendonehere,togiveanupperboundforthecapacityofaconvexsetinR2nintermsoflocalU(n)-invariantsofitsboundary.Thisresultwillbepublished

elsewhere.TotalMeanCurvatureandClosedGeodesics3752ApplicationstoZollSurfacesAllproofsandoriginalsourcesfortheunpovedstatmentsinthissectionmaybefoundinBesse’sbook[1].

DefinitionAZollsurfaceisaRiemannianmetriconthe2-spherewhosegeodesicflowisperiodicwithminimalperiod2π.

HerearesomeofthethingsthatareknownaboutZollsurfaces:•ThereareinfinitelymanyZollsurfaceswhicharenotisometrictotheunitsphere(Zoll,Darboux).

•TheareaofaZollsurfaceisequalto4π(Weinstein).•GiventwoZollsurfacesthereexistsadiffeomorphismbetweenthemanifoldsofunitcovectorswhichpreservesthecanonicalcontactforms.Inparticular,thegeodesicflowsofanytwoZollsurfacesareconjugate(Weinstein).

InthissectionweapplythepreviousresultstothestudyoftheextrinsicgeometryofZollsurfaces.Itseemsthatthesearethefirststepsinthisdirection.Tostateourfirsttheoremweintroducesomenotations:Letusagreetocallanembeddinge:S2→R3aZollembeddingiftheinduced

metricisZoll,andletussaythataconvexsubsetofR3isacylinderifitistheunionofafamilyofparallellines.Bytheperimeterofacylinderweshallmeantheperimeteroftheplaneconvexsetobtainedbyintersectingthecylinderwithaplaneperpendiculartoitslines.

Theorem2(Non-squeezing)TheredoesnotexistanystrictlyconvexZollem-beddingofS2intoacylinderofperimeterlessthan2π.

Proof.IfΣ⊂R3isaconvexsurface,thenitcannotbeembeddedinacylinderofperimeterlessthanuΣ.Now,byBirkhoff’stheorem,theβinvariantofaconvexZollsurfaceis2πandthereforeuΣ

≥2π.

Theorem3ThetotalmeancurvatureofastrictlyconvexZollsurfaceΣisgreaterthanorequalto4π.Moreover,equalityholdsifandonlyifΣistheunitsphere.