Differentiable curve
Differential geometry of curves is the branch of geometry that deals with smooth curves in the plane and the Euclidean space by methods of differential and integral calculus.
Many specific curves have been thoroughly investigated using the synthetic approach. Differential geometry takes another path: curves are represented in a parametrized form, and their geometric properties and various quantities associated with them, such as the curvature and the arc length, are expressed via derivatives and integrals using vector calculus. One of the most important tools used to analyze a curve is the Frenet frame, a moving frame that provides a coordinate system at each point of the curve that is "best adapted" to the curve near that point.
The theory of curves is much simpler and narrower in scope than the theory of surfaces and its higher-dimensional generalizations because a regular curve in a Euclidean space has no intrinsic geometry. Any regular curve may be parametrized by the arc length. From the point of view of a theoretical point particle on the curve that does not know anything about the ambient space, all curves would appear the same. Different space curves are only distinguished by how they bend and twist. Quantitatively, this is measured by the differential-geometric invariants called the curvature and the torsion of a curve. The fundamental theorem of curves asserts that the knowledge of these invariants completely determines the curve.
Definitions
A parametric -curve or a -parametrization is a vector-valued functionthat is -times continuously differentiable, where,, and be a non-empty interval of real numbers. The of the parametric curve is. The parametric curve and its image must be distinguished because a given subset of can be the image of several distinct parametric curves. The parameter in can be thought of as representing time, and the trajectory of a moving point in space. When is a closed interval, is called the starting point and is the endpoint of. If the starting and the end points coincide, then is a closed curve or a loop. For being a -loop, the function must be -times continuously differentiable and satisfy for.
The parametric curve is if
is injective. It is if each component function of is an analytic function, that is, it is of class.
The curve is regular of order if, for every,
is a linearly independent subset of. In particular, a parametric -curve is if and only if for any.
Re-parametrization and equivalence relation
Given the image of a parametric curve, there are several different parametrizations of the parametric curve. Differential geometry aims to describe the properties of parametric curves that are invariant under certain reparametrizations. A suitable equivalence relation on the set of all parametric curves must be defined. The differential-geometric properties of a parametric curve are invariant under reparametrization and therefore properties of the equivalence class itself. The equivalence classes are called -curves and are central objects studied in the differential geometry of curves.Two parametric -curves, and, are said to be if and only if there exists a bijective -map such that
and
is then said to be a of.
Re-parametrization defines an equivalence relation on the set of all parametric -curves of class. The equivalence class of this relation simply a -curve.
An even finer equivalence relation of oriented parametric -curves can be defined by requiring to satisfy.
Equivalent parametric -curves have the same image, and equivalent oriented parametric -curves even traverse the image in the same direction.
Length and natural parametrization
The length of a parametric -curve is defined asThe length of a parametric curve is invariant under reparametrization and is therefore a differential-geometric property of the parametric curve.
For each regular parametric -curve, where, the function is defined
Writing, where is the inverse function of, This is a re-parametrization of that is called an , natural parametrization, unit-speed parametrization. The parameter is called the of.
This parametrization is preferred because the natural parameter traverses the image of at unit speed, so that
In practice, it is often very difficult to calculate the natural parametrization of a parametric curve, but it is useful for theoretical arguments.
For a given parametric curve, the natural parametrization is unique up to a shift of parameter.
The quantity
is sometimes called the or action of the curve; this name is justified because the geodesic equations are the Euler–Lagrange equations of motion for this action.
Frenet frame
A Frenet frame is a moving reference frame of orthonormal vectors which are used to describe a curve locally at each point. It is the main tool in the differential geometric treatment of curves because it is far easier and more natural to describe local properties in terms of a local reference system than using a global one such as Euclidean coordinates.Given a -curve in which is regular of order the Frenet frame for the curve is the set of orthonormal vectors
called Frenet vectors. They are constructed from the derivatives of using the Gram–Schmidt orthogonalization algorithm with
The real-valued functions are called generalized curvatures and are defined as
The Frenet frame and the generalized curvatures are invariant under reparametrization and are therefore differential geometric properties of the curve.
Bertrand curve
A Bertrand curve is a Frenet curve in with the additional property that there is a second curve in such that the principal normal vectors to these two curves are identical at each corresponding point. In other words, if and are two curves in such that for any,, then and are Bertrand curves. For this reason it is common to speak of a Bertrand pair of curves. According to problem 25 in Kühnel's "Differential Geometry Curves – Surfaces – Manifolds", it is also true that two Bertrand curves that do not lie in the same two-dimensional plane are characterized by the existence of a linear relation where and are real constants and. Furthermore, the product of torsions of Bertrand pairs of curves are constant.Special Frenet vectors and generalized curvatures
The first three Frenet vectors and generalized curvatures can be visualized in three-dimensional space. They have additional names and more semantic information attached to them.Tangent vector
If a curve represents the path of a particle, then the instantaneous velocity of the particle at a given point is expressed by a vector, called the tangent vector to the curve at. Mathematically, given a parametrized curve, for every value of the parameter, the vectoris the tangent vector at the point. Generally speaking, the tangent vector may be zero. The tangent vector's magnitude
is the speed at the time.
The first Frenet vector is the unit tangent vector in the same direction, defined at each regular point of :
If is the natural parameter, then the tangent vector has unit length. The formula simplifies:
The unit tangent vector determines the orientation of the curve, or the forward direction, corresponding to the increasing values of the parameter. The unit tangent vector taken as a curve traces the spherical image of the original curve.
Normal or curvature vector
The normal vector, sometimes called the curvature vector, indicates the deviance of the curve from being a straight line.It is defined as
Its normalized form, the unit normal vector, is the second Frenet vector and is defined as
The tangent and the normal vector at point define the osculating plane at point.
It can be shown that. Therefore,
Curvature
The first generalized curvature is called curvature and measures the deviance of from being a straight line relative to the osculating plane. It is defined asand is called the curvature of at point. It can be shown that
The reciprocal of the curvature
is called the radius of curvature.
A circle with radius has a constant curvature of
whereas a line has a curvature of 0.
Binormal vector
The unit binormal vector is the third Frenet vector. It is always orthogonal to the unit tangent and normal vectors at. It is defined asIn 3-dimensional space, the equation simplifies to
or to
That either sign may occur is illustrated by the examples of a right-handed helix and a left-handed helix.
Torsion
The second generalized curvature is called and measures the deviance of from being a plane curve. In other words, if the torsion is zero, the curve lies completely in the same osculating plane. It is defined asand is called the torsion of at point.
Main theorem of curve theory
Given functions:then there exists a unique -curve which is regular of order n and has the following properties:
where the set
is the Frenet frame for the curve.
By additionally providing a start in, a starting point in and an initial positive orthonormal Frenet frame with
the Euclidean transformations are eliminated to obtain a unique curve.