On the Moduli Space of a Spherical Polygonal Linkage

http://dx.doi.org/10.4153/CMB-1999-037-x
Canad. Math. Bull. 42(1999), 307-320

  Published:1999-09-01
 Printed: Sep 1999

We give a ``wall-crossing'' formula for computing the topology of the moduli space of a closed $n$-gon linkage on $\mathbb{S}^2$. We do this by determining the Morse theory of the function $\rho_n$ on the moduli space of $n$-gon linkages which is given by the length of the last side---the length of the last side is allowed to vary, the first $(n - 1)$ side-lengths are fixed. We obtain a Morse function on the $(n - 2)$-torus with level sets moduli spaces of $n$-gon linkages. The critical points of $\rho_n$ are the linkages which are contained in a great circle. We give a formula for the signature of the Hessian of $\rho_n$ at such a linkage in terms of the number of back-tracks and the winding number. We use our formula to determine the moduli spaces of all regular pentagonal spherical linkages.