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The document discusses the Fundamental Theorem of Curves in differential geometry, focusing on Frenet curves and their properties in arbitrary dimensions. It introduces the Frenet-Serret formulas, the concept of curvatures, and the uniqueness of Frenet curves given certain curvatures. Additionally, it provides examples and proofs related to the properties of these curves, including the behavior of torsion and the implications for non-Frenet curves.

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2 views

lecture05

The document discusses the Fundamental Theorem of Curves in differential geometry, focusing on Frenet curves and their properties in arbitrary dimensions. It introduces the Frenet-Serret formulas, the concept of curvatures, and the uniqueness of Frenet curves given certain curvatures. Additionally, it provides examples and proofs related to the properties of these curves, including the behavior of torsion and the implications for non-Frenet curves.

Uploaded by

roger.chemoul86
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© © All Rights Reserved
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DIFFERENTIAL GEOMETRY

MATH 136

Unit 5: Fundamental theorem of curves

5.1. A Frenet curve is given by a smooth map [a, b] ⊂ R → Rn for which if


r′ , r′′ , . . . , r(n) are linearly independent at every point. In the case n = 3 we had
seen this as r′ × r′′ ̸= 0.
Let e1 , e2 , . . . , en denote the orthonormal frame obtained by Gram-Schmidt. One can
get this as follows: build the matrix R with r′ , r′′ . . . , r(n) as rows and perform the
QR decomposition to get an orthonormal matrix Q in which the vectors e1 , e2 , . . . , en
are the rows. 1 Define the curvatures κj = e′j · ej+1 . It is positive for j ≤ n − 2.
The largest κn−1 is also called the torsion and is not necessarily positive. A natural
generalization of the Frenet formulas to arbitrary dimensions is

Theorem 1 (Frenet-Serret formulas).


′
e1 e1
  
0 κ1 0 0 ··· 0
 
e2 e2
−κ1 0 κ2 0 ··· ···
   
··· ···
    
0 −κ2 0 ··· ··· ···
    
···  = ···  .
    
0 0 ··· ··· ··· 0
 
··· ···
    
   ··· ··· ··· ··· 0 κn−1  
 en−1   en−1 
0 ··· · · · 0 −κn−1 0
en en

Proof. To get the entries of K expand e′j in terms of the e1 , . . . , en .


n
X
e′j = (e′j · ei )ei .
i=1

This means Q′ = KQ with skew symmetric K. Especially, the diagonal entries of


K are zero. The skew symmetry can be seen from ej · ek = 0 for all j ̸= k implying
e′j ·ek = −ej ·e′k . For every j ≤ n−1, the ej by definition are in the subspace generated by
r′ , r′′ , . . . , r(j) which is the subspace generated by e1 , . . . , ej and e′j therefore generated
by e1 , . . . , ej . This implies e′j · ej+2 = e′j · ej+3 = · · · = e′j · en = 0. The only entry in
the upper triangular part is (e′j · ej+1 ) = κj . □

1Frenet and Serret have discovered the n = 3 dimensional case independently. The higher dimen-
sional case has appeared only in the 20th century.
Differential Geometry

5.2. You verify the skew symmetry of K abstractly starting with QT Q = 1. A fancy
way to restate is that in the Lie group SO(n), the tangent space is the Lie algebra
so(n).
Lemma 1. If Q(t) is a curve of orthogonal matrices, then Q′ = AQ with skew sym-
metric A.
5.3. Given curvatures κ1 (t) > 0, . . . , κn−2 (t) > 0, κn−1 (t) which are all continuous, we
get a continuous path A(t) of skew symmetric matrices.
Theorem 2 (Fundamental theorem of curves). Given curvatures κj , there is up to
translation and rotation a unique Frenet curve which has these curvatures.
Proof. The curvatures define a curve A(t) of skew symmetric matrices. The differential
equation Q′ = A(t)Q = F (t, Q) is linear in Q and so smooth. Since the solution of
this differential equation gives orthogonal matrices Q(t) (check it!) the solution
R t ′ exists
for all times. Proceed as in the 3 dimensional case by writing r(t) = r(0) + 0 r (s) ds
where r′ (s) = Q(s)r′ (0) is given. □
5.4. Examples.
1) If K is constant, then eKt solves Q′ = KQ.
2) If K is constant and n = 3, then the curve is a spiral if τ ̸= 0 and a circle if τ = 0.
3) In R3 , the torsion is constant zero if and only if the curve is contained in a plane.
4) In Rn the torsion is constant zero if and only if the curve is contained in a (n − 1)
dimensional hyperplane.
5) A line is not a Frenet curve and the above does not apply.
6) For non-Frenet curves, lots of things can go wrong. Assume for example, you have
a curve which contains some part which is a line. While traveling along that line, we
can turn around and lose track of the Frenet frame.

Figure 1. We see the unique curve with κ(t) = 11+10 cos(17t), τ (t) =
22 sin(5t) with t ∈ [0, 65π]. It is an entertaining fun to generate such
curves.

5.5. A famous example is the Euler curve. It is a plane curve for which κ(t) = t is
fixed.
Oliver Knill, [email protected], Math 136, Fall, 2024

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