Closed Curves and Space Curves

(Com S 477/577 Notes)

Yan-Bin Jia Oct 4, 2012

So far we have discussed only local properties of (plane) curves. These properties depend only on the behavior of a curve near a given point, and not on the global shape of the curve. Now let us look at some global results about curves. The most famous, and perhaps the oldest, of these is the isoperimetric inequality, which relates the length of a certain closed curve to the area it contains. Later on, we will discuss space curves with an introduction to the celebrated Frenet formula.

Simple Closed Curves

Intuitively, simple closed curves are the curves that join up, but do not otherwise self-intersect. More precisely, a simple closed curve in R2 with period a, where a R, is a regular curve : R R2 such that (t) = (u) if and only if t u = ka for some integer k.

Thus, the point (t) returns to its starting point when t increases by a but not before that. In the gure below, the rst curve is simple closed, the second one is simple but not closed, and the third one is closed but not simple.

A standard, but highly non-trivial, result of the topology of R2 , called the Jordan Curve Theorem, states that any simple closed curve in the plane has an interior and an exterior. More precisely, according to the theorem, the set of points of R2 not on the curve is the disjoint union of two subsets of R2 , denoted by int() and ext(), such that (i) int() is bounded; (ii) ext() is unbounded; 1

(iii) both of the regions int() and ext() are connected, that is, they have the property that any two points in the same region can be joined by a curve lying entirely in the region.
Example 1. The parametrized circle (t) = cos 2t 2t , sin a a

is a simple closed curve with period a. The interior and exterior of are given by { (x, y ) R2 | x2 + y 2 < 1 } respectively. and { (x, y ) R2 | x2 + y 2 > 1 },

Not all examples of simple closed curves have such an obvious interior and exterior, however. Look at the simple closed curve below. Is the point p in its interior or exterior?

Since every point on a simple closed curve of period a is traced out as the parameter t of varies through any interval of length a, for example, [0, a], it is reasonable to dene the length of to be a (t) dt. () =
0

with the arc length Since is regular, it has a unit-speed reparametrization

t

s=
0

(u) du

(s) = (t). We have that of as its parameter such that

t+a

s(t + a) =
0 a

(u) du
t+a

=
0

(u) du +
a t

(u) du

= () +
0

(v + a) dv 2

= () +
0

(v ) dv

= () + s(t). Hence we conclude that s(t) = s(u) (t) = (u)

s(u) s(t) = k(). is a simple closed curve with period . In short, we can always assume that a This shows that simple closed curve is unit-speed and that its period is equal to length. By convention, is positively oriented, that is, at every point t the unit normal N (t) points into its interior.

u t = ka

some integer k

The area contained by is dened as A() =

int()

dxdy.

This can be computed using Greens Theorem. According to the theorem, for all functions f (x, y ) and g(x, y ) continuously dierentiable over the region int(),
int()

g f x y

dxdy =

f (x, y ) dx + g(x, y ) dy.

Proposition 1 Let (t) = (x(t), y (t)) be a positively-oriented simple closed curve in R2 with period a. Then 1 a A() = (xy yx ) dt. 2 0 Proof
1 y, g = 1 Let f = 2 2 x. Then by Greens theorem, we get

A() = = =

int()

f g x y

dxdy

1 x dy y dx 2 1 a (xy yx ) dt. 2 0 3

The most important global result about plane curves is given by the theorem below. Theorem 2 (The Isoperimetric Inequality) Let be a simple closed curve with length and area A. Then 1 2 , A 4 where equality holds if an only if is a circle. A simple closed curve is called convex if its interior int() is convex, in the sense that the straight line segment joining any two points in int() is contained entirely in int().

convex

not convex

Theorem 3 (Four Vertex Theorem) Every convex simple closed curve in R2 has at least four vertices. For a proof of this theorem, we refer to [2, pp. 56-57]

Space Curves

While a plane curve is determined by its curvature, this is no longer true for space curves. For 1 1 example, a circle (cos t, sin t) in the xy -plane and a circular helix ( 2 cos t, 1 2 sin t, 2 t) both have unit curvature everywhere, but it is impossible to change one curve into the other by any combination of rotations and translations. We shall dene another type of curvature for space curves, called the torsion. As a matter of fact, the curvature and torsion of a curve together determine the curve up to a rigid motion. Let (s) be a unit-speed curve in R3 . Denote by T the unit tangent vector. Thus T = (s). The real-valued function (s) such that (s) = T (s) 0 is called the curvature function of . Suppose the curvature (s) is never zero. We dene the principal normal of at the point (s) to be the vector 1 T (s). N (s) = (s)
Since T (s) = , N is a unit vector. Because T T = 1 2 (T T ) = 0, T and N are orthogonal to each other. It follows that B =T N

is a unit vector orthogonal to both T and N . This vector B (s) is called the binormal vector of . Thus, {T (s), N (s), B (s)} is an orthonormal basis of R3 such that B = T N, N = B T, T = N B.

This basis is called the Frenet frame. The key to the successful study of the geometry of is to use T , N , B , whenever possible, instead of the x-, y -, z -axes, which contain no information about the curve. The rst and most important use of this idea is to express the derivatives T , N , B in terms of T , N , B . Since T = , we have T = = N . Next, consider B . We dierentiate the equation B B = 1 and obtain that B B = 0. So B is orthogonal to B . Dierentiating B T = 0 gives us B T + B T = 0. Thus B T = B T = B N = 0. So B is orthogonal to T . Therefore B must be a scalar multiple of N . We can now dene the torsion function of the curve to be the real-valued function on the curve domain I such that B = N. (1) The minus sign in the denition is traditional.
T (s) B (s + s) T (s + s) N (s + s) B (s + s) B (s) N (s + s) N (s) T (s), T (s + s)

B (s)

N (s)

As curvature describes the rate of rotation of the tangent on a plane curve, torsion describes the rate of rotation of the binormal on a space curve. The above gure explains this. Consider traveling a distance s from the point (s) along the curve to reach a point (s + s). The two points have dierent Frenet frames attached to them. To isolate the eect due to binormal rotation from other geometric variations, imagine superposing the two points and aligning the two tangents T (s) and T (s + s) at them. Let these two vectors point inward, as shown on the right in the gure. Then the two principal normals N (s) and N (s + s), and the two binormals B (s) and B (s + s) are in a plane orthogonal to the two tangent vectors. Let be the angle of rotation from B (s) to B (s + s). Then we have (B (s + s) B (s)) N (s) B (s) = , and consequently, B (s + s) B (s) N (s) = lim . s 0 s s 0 s lim This just means that d = B (s) N (s) = . ds 5

Hence measures the rate of binormal rotation.

Example 2. Every plane curve (s) = (x(s), y (s)) has zero torsion. This is because both T and N remains in the xy -plane, so B = (0, 0, 1) and B (s) = 0. By comparing this with (1) we obtain that = 0.

We shall presently show that does measure the torsion, or twisting, of the curve . Theorem 4 (Frenet formulas) If : I R3 is a unit-speed curve with curvature > 0 and torsion , then T = N B

N, + B, N

= T =

Proof As we saw above, the rst and third formulas are just the denitions of curvature and torsion. To prove the second, we express N in terms of T, N, B using orthonormal expansion: N = (N T )T + (N N )N + (N B )B. These coecients are easily found. Dierentiating N T = 0, we get N T + N T = 0; hence N T = N T = N N = . That N N = 0 follows from that N is a unit vector. Finally, N B = N B = N ( N ) = . Notice that the matrix

which expresses T , N , and B in terms of T , N , and B is skew symmetric, i.e., it is equal to the negative of its transpose.
Example 3. Let us compute the Frenet frame, the curvature and torsion of the unit-speed helix (s) = where c = a2 + b2 and a > 0. s bs s a cos , a sin , c c c ,

0 0 0

0 0

B T

Immediately, we obtain T (s) = (s) = Hence, T (s) = Thus (s) = T (s) = From T = N , we get s a s b a sin , cos , c c c c c .

a s s a cos , 2 sin , 0 . c2 c c c a a = 2 > 0. c2 a + b2

s s N (s) = cos , sin , 0 . c c Note that regardless of what values a and b have, N always points straight toward the axis of the cylinder on which lies. Next, we obtain b s b s a B (s) = T (s) N (s) = . sin , cos , c c c c c b s b s cos , 2 sin , 0 . c2 c c c

To compute torsion, we calculate the derivative B (s) =

By denition, B = N . Comparing the formulae for B and N , we conclude that (s) = b b = 2 . 2 c a + b2

so the torsion of the helix is also constant. Note that when the parameter b is zero, the helix reduces to a circle of radius a. The curvature of this 1 , and the torsion is identically zero. circle is = a

Example 3 is a very special one. In general, neither the curvature nor the torsion functions of a curve need to be constant.

Approximation of Space Curves

We can now give an informative approximation of a given curve near an arbitrary point on the curve. The goal is to show how curvature and torsion inuence the shape of the curve and express this in terms of the Frenet frame at the selected point. For simplicity, we shall consider the unit-speed curve = (1 , 2 , 3 ) near the point (0). For s small, each coordinate i (s) is closely approximated by the initial terms of its Taylor series: i (s) i (0) + Hence d2 i s2 d3 i s3 di (0)s + (0) + (0) . ds ds2 2 ds3 6

s3 s2 (0) + (0). 2 6 But (0) = T0 , and (0) = 0 N0 , where the subscript indicates evaluation at s = 0, and we assume 0 = 0. Now d N + N . = (N ) = ds (s) (0) + s (0) + 7

Thus by the Frenet formula for N , we get (0) = 2 0 T0 + d (0)N0 + 0 0 B0 . ds

Finally, substitute these derivatives into the approximation of (s) given above, and keep only the dominant term in the coecient of each of T0 , N0 , B0 (that is, the one containing the smallest power of s), the result is (s) (0) + sT0 + 0 s3 s2 N0 + 0 0 B0 . 2 6 (2)

(s), we obtain a curve called the Frenet approximation of near Denoting the right side by s = 0. We emphasize that has a dierent Frenet approximation near each of its points; if 0 is replaced by an arbitrary number s0 , then s is replaced by s s0 , as usual in Taylor expansions. Let us now examine the Frenet approximation (2) given above. The rst term in the expression is just the point (0). The rst two terms give the tangent line (0) + sT0 of at (0) for the best linear approximation of near (0). The rst three terms give the parabola (0) + sT0 + 0 s2 N0 , 2

which is the best quadratic approximation of near (0). Note that this parabola lies in the plane through (0) orthogonal to B0 , the osculating plane of at (0), as shown in Figure 1 (from [1, p. 60]). This parabola has the same shape as the parabola y = 0 x2 /2 in the xy plane, and is completely determined by the curvature 0 of at s = 0. , controls the motion Finally, the torsion 0 , which appears in the last and smallest term of of orthogonal to the osculating plane at (0). We conclude with a result that a space curve is determined by it curvature and torsion functions up to a rigid motion (which consists of a rotation and a translation). (s) be two unit-speed curves in R3 with the same curvature (s) > 0 Theorem 5 Let (s) and . and the same torsion (s) for all s. Then there exists a rigid motion that transforms into On the other hand, let and be smooth functions with > 0 everywhere, there exists a unit-speed curve in R3 whose curvature is and whose torsion is .

References
[1] B. ONeill. Elementary Dierential Geometry. Academic Press, Inc., 1966. [2] A. Pressley. Elementary Dierential Geometry. Springer-Verlag London, 2001.

Figure 1: Space curve approximation, Fig. 2.10 on p. 60 of [1].