Möbius energy
Encyclopedia
In mathematics
, the Möbius energy of a knot
is a particular knot energy
, i.e. a functional on the space of knots. It was discovered by Jun O'Hara, who demonstrated that the energy blows up as the knot's strands get close to one another. This is a useful property because it prevents self-intersection and ensures the result under gradient descent
is of the same knot type.
Invariance of Möbius energy under Möbius transformations was demonstrated by Freedman, He, and Wang (1994) who used it to show the existence of a C1,1 energy minimizer in each isotopy class of a prime knot
. They also showed the minimum energy of any knot conformation is achieved by a round circle.
Conjecturally, there is no energy minimizer for composite knots. Kusner and Sullivan have done computer experiments with a discretized version of the Möbius energy and concluded that there should be no energy minimizer for the knot sum of two trefoils (although this is not a proof).
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, the Möbius energy of a knot
Knot (mathematics)
In mathematics, a knot is an embedding of a circle in 3-dimensional Euclidean space, R3, considered up to continuous deformations . A crucial difference between the standard mathematical and conventional notions of a knot is that mathematical knots are closed—there are no ends to tie or untie on a...
is a particular knot energy
Knot energy
In physical knot theory, a knot energy is a functional on the space of all knot conformations. A conformation of a knot is a particular embedding of a circle into three-dimensional space. Depending on the needs of the energy function, the space of conformations is restricted to a sufficiently...
, i.e. a functional on the space of knots. It was discovered by Jun O'Hara, who demonstrated that the energy blows up as the knot's strands get close to one another. This is a useful property because it prevents self-intersection and ensures the result under gradient descent
Gradient descent
Gradient descent is a first-order optimization algorithm. To find a local minimum of a function using gradient descent, one takes steps proportional to the negative of the gradient of the function at the current point...
is of the same knot type.
Invariance of Möbius energy under Möbius transformations was demonstrated by Freedman, He, and Wang (1994) who used it to show the existence of a C1,1 energy minimizer in each isotopy class of a prime knot
Prime knot
In knot theory, a prime knot is a knot that is, in a certain sense, indecomposable. Specifically, it is a non-trivial knot which cannot be written as the knot sum of two non-trivial knots. Knots that are not prime are said to be composite. It can be a nontrivial problem to determine whether a...
. They also showed the minimum energy of any knot conformation is achieved by a round circle.
Conjecturally, there is no energy minimizer for composite knots. Kusner and Sullivan have done computer experiments with a discretized version of the Möbius energy and concluded that there should be no energy minimizer for the knot sum of two trefoils (although this is not a proof).