Almost local metrics on shape space of hypersurfaces in n-space

This paper extends parts of the results from [P.W.Michor and D. Mumford, \emph{Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal.,} 23 (2007), pp. 74--113] for plane curves to the case of hypersurfaces in $\mathbb R^n$. Let $M$ be a compact connected oriented $n-1$ dimensional manifold without boundary like the sphere or the torus. Then shape space is either the manifold of submanifolds of $\mathbb R^n$ of type $M$, or the orbifold of immersions from $M$ to $\mathbb R^n$ modulo the group of diffeomorphisms of $M$. We investigate almost local Riemannian metrics on shape space. These are induced by metrics of the following form on the space of immersions: G_f(h,k) = \int_{M} \Phi(\on{Vol}(f),\operatorname{Tr}(L))\g(h, k) \operatorname{vol}(f^*\g), where \g is the Euclidean metric on $\mathbb R^n$, f^*\g is the induced metric on $M$, $h,k\in C^\infty(M,\mathbb R^n)$ are tangent vectors at $f$ to the space of embeddings or immersions, where $\Phi:\mathbb R^2\to \mathbb R_{>0}$ is a suitable smooth function, \operatorname{Vol}(f) = \int_M\operatorname{vol}(f^*\g) is the total hypersurface volume of $f(M)$, and the trace $\operatorname{Tr}(L)$ of the Weingarten mapping is the mean curvature. For these metrics we compute the geodesic equations both on the space of immersions and on shape space, the conserved momenta arising from the obvious symmetries, and the sectional curvature. For special choices of $\Phi$ we give complete formulas for the sectional curvature. Numerical experiments illustrate the behavior of these metrics.Comment: 70 pages, version which agrees with the published versio

The magnetic and electric transverse spin density of spatially confined light

When a beam of light is laterally confined, its field distribution can exhibit points where the local magnetic and electric field vectors spin in a plane containing the propagation direction of the electromagnetic wave. The phenomenon indicates the presence of a non-zero transverse spin density. Here, we experimentally investigate this transverse spin density of both magnetic and electric fields, occurring in highly-confined structured fields of light. Our scheme relies on the utilization of a high-refractive-index nano-particle as local field probe, exhibiting magnetic and electric dipole resonances in the visible spectral range. Because of the directional emission of dipole moments which spin around an axis parallel to a nearby dielectric interface, such a probe particle is capable of locally sensing the magnetic and electric transverse spin density of a tightly focused beam impinging under normal incidence with respect to said interface. We exploit the achieved experimental results to emphasize the difference between magnetic and electric transverse spin densities.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Uniqueness of the Fisher-Rao metric on the space of smooth densities

MB was supported by ‘Fonds zur F¨orderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, Projekt P 24625’

Constructing reparametrization invariant metrics on spaces of plane curves

Metrics on shape space are used to describe deformations that take one shape to another, and to determine a distance between them. We study a family of metrics on the space of curves, that includes several recently proposed metrics, for which the metrics are characterised by mappings into vector spaces where geodesics can be easily computed. This family consists of Sobolev-type Riemannian metrics of order one on the space $\text{Imm}(S^1,\mathbb R^2)$ of parametrized plane curves and the quotient space $\text{Imm}(S^1,\mathbb R^2)/\text{Diff}(S^1)$ of unparametrized curves. For the space of open parametrized curves we find an explicit formula for the geodesic distance and show that the sectional curvatures vanish on the space of parametrized and are non-negative on the space of unparametrized open curves. For the metric, which is induced by the "R-transform", we provide a numerical algorithm that computes geodesics between unparameterised, closed curves, making use of a constrained formulation that is implemented numerically using the RATTLE algorithm. We illustrate the algorithm with some numerical tests that demonstrate it's efficiency and robustness.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures. Extended versio

Involvement of MicroRNA Families in Cancer

Collecting representative sets of cancer microRNAs (miRs) from the literature we show that their corresponding families are enriched in sets of highly interacting miR families. Targeting cancer genes on a statistically significant level, such cancer miR families strongly intervene with signaling pathways that harbor numerous cancer genes. Clustering miR family-specific profiles of pathway intervention, we found that different miR families share similar interaction patterns. Resembling corresponding patterns of cancer miRs families, such interaction patterns may indicate a miR family’s potential role in cancer. As we find that the number of targeted cancer genes is a naı¨ve proxy for a cancer miR family, we design a simple method to predict candidate miR families based on gene-specific interaction profiles. Assessing the impact of miR families to distinguish between (non-)cancer genes, we predict a set of 84 potential candidate families, including 75% of initially collected cancer miR families. Further confirming their relevance, predicted cancer miR families are significantly indicated in increasing, non-random numbers of tumor types

Smooth perturbations of the functional calculus and applications to Riemannian geometry on spaces of metrics

We show for a certain class of operators $A$ and holomorphic functions $f$ that the functional calculus $A\mapsto f(A)$ is holomorphic. Using this result we are able to prove that fractional Laplacians $(1+\Delta^g)^p$ depend real analytically on the metric $g$ in suitable Sobolev topologies. As an application we obtain local well-posedness of the geodesic equation for fractional Sobolev metrics on the space of all Riemannian metrics.Comment: 31 page