Branching Solutions to One-dimensional Variational Problems

Book excerpt: This book deals with the new class of one-dimensional variational problems OCo the problems with branching solutions. Instead of extreme curves (mappings of a segment to a manifold) we investigate extreme networks, which are mappings of graphs (one-dimensional cell complexes) to a manifold. Various applications of the approach are presented, such as several generalizations of the famous Steiner problem of finding the shortest network spanning given points of the plane. Contents: Preliminary Results; Networks Extremality Criteria; Linear Networks in R N; Extremals of Length Type Functionals: The Case of Parametric Networks; Extremals of Functionals Generated by Norms. Readership: Researchers in differential geometry and topology."