Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T23:14:40.565Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Walker conjecture for chains in ℝd

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2011

MICHAEL FARBER
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE. e-mail: [email protected]
JEAN-CLAUDE HAUSMANN
Affiliation:
Mathematics section, University of Geneva, 2-4 rue du Liévre, Geneva, Switzerland. e-mail: [email protected]
DIRK SCHÜTZ
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE. e-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

A chain is a configuration in ℝd of segments of length ℓ1, . . ., ℓn−1 consecutively joined to each other such that the resulting broken line connects two given points at a distance ℓn. For a fixed generic set of length parameters the space of all chains in ℝd is a closed smooth manifold of dimension (n − 2)(d − 1) − 1. In this paper we study cohomology algebras of spaces of chains. We give a complete classification of these spaces (up to equivariant diffeomorphism) in terms of linear inequalities of a special kind which are satisfied by the length parameters ℓ1, . . ., ℓn. This result is analogous to the conjecture of K. Walker which concerns the special case d=2.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

[1]Browder, W.Surgery on Simply Connected Manifolds. (Springer-Verlag, 1972).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[2]Farber, M. and Fromm, V., Homology of planar telescopic linkages. Algebr. Geom. Topol. 10 (2010), 10631087.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[3]Farber, M., Hausmann, J-Cl. and Schütz, D.On the conjecture of Kevin Walker. Journal of Topology and Analysis 1 (2009), 6586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4]Farber, M., Hausmann, J-Cl. and Schütz, D. On the cohomology ring of chains in ℝd ArXiv:0903.0472v2 [math.AT].Google Scholar
[5]Farber, M. and Schütz, D.Homology of planar polygon spaces. Geom. Dedicata 125 (2007), 7592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[6]Gubeladze, J.The isomorphism problem for commutative monoid rings. J. Pure Appl. Algebra 129 (1998), 3565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[7]Hausmann, J.-C.Sur la topologie des bras articulé. in Algebraic Topology Poznań 1989, Springer Lectures Notes 1474 (1989), 146159.Google Scholar
[8]Hausmann, J.-C.Geometric descriptions of polygon and chain spaces. In Topology and Robotics Contemp. Math. Amer. Math. Soc. 438 (2007), 4757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[9]Hausmann, J.-C. and Rodriguez, E.The space of clouds in an Euclidean space. Experiment. Math. 13 (2004), 3147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[10]Schütz, D.The isomorphism problem for planar polygon spaces. Journal of Topology 3 (2010), 713742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[11]Walker, K. Configuration spaces of linkages. Bachelor's thesis. Princeton (1985).Google Scholar