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Anton Petrunin
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(1-Lipschitz) + (length-preserving) = isometry

I am looking for an elementary way to prove the following theorem.

Theorem. Let $\alpha$ and $\beta$ be two simple convex curves in $\mathbb R^2$. Assume $$\mathop{\rm length} \alpha=\mathop{\rm length}\beta$$ and there is a 1-Lipschitz bijecction $f\colon\alpha\to\beta$. Then $f$ is an isometry.

It would be better if the same proof would work for Lobachevsky plane and unit sphere (for the sphere one has to assume that the length of the curves is $<2{\cdot}\pi$).

The proof I know is simple, but it use Alexandrov geometry quite a bit: If we cut from the plane the region bounded by $\alpha$ and glue instead the region bounded by $\beta$ then the obtained space will have curvature $\ge0$ in the sence of Alexandrov and it is easy to show that it has to be isometric to the Euclidean plane. Hence the result.

P.S. This morning I realized that this also follows from a version of Cauchy's Arm Lemma. Namely, assume $\alpha,\beta\colon[0,\ell]\to\mathbb R^2$ are a closed convex curves with unit-speed parameter. Assume that for any $t$ curvature of $\alpha$ at $\alpha(t)$ is at most the curvature $\beta$ at $\beta(t)$ (In the non-smooth case the curvature is measure and this inequality still has sense). Then $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are isometric.

Anton Petrunin
  • 45k
  • 14
  • 135
  • 299