The homothety conjecture for infinity-shaped extremal curves

At least 14 years old · documented by

Let γα\gamma_\alpha be a closed extremal curve determined by a pendulum trajectory α(t)\alpha(t), and let K(ξ)K(\xi) denote the complete elliptic integral of the first kind. For a nonzero integer rr, consider α\alpha satisfying

sin⁡α(t)2=ξsn⁡(2rK(ξ)tπ∣ξ).\sin\frac{\alpha(t)}{2}=\xi\operatorname{sn}\Big(\frac{2rK(\xi)t}{\pi}\Big|\xi\Big).

Homothety conjecture. All infinity-shaped extremal curves are homothetic to the curve γα\gamma_\alpha for this choice of α\alpha, where ξ≈.90890856\xi\approx.90890856.

This conjecture identifies the nontrivial extremal shape numerically obtained from the pendulum equation and predicts that all infinity-shaped extremal curves differ only by scaling and parametrization. The source provides numerical evidence but no proof or resolution.

References

Primary source

Oleg Karpenkov and Alexey Sossinsky, “Energies of knot diagrams”, arXiv:1106.3414 (2011).

Progress summary

Never refreshed

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.