Fractional Sobolev metrics on spaces of immersed curves

Abstract: Motivated by applications in the field of shape analysis, we study reparametrization invariant, fractional order Sobolev-type metrics on the space of smooth regular curves $\operatorname{Imm}(S^1,\mathbb{R}^d)$ and on its Sobolev completions $\mathcal{I}^{q}(S^1,\mathbb{R}^{d})$. We prove local well-posedness of the geodesic equations both on the Banach manifold $\mathcal{I}^{q}(S^1,\mathbb{R}^{d})$ and on the Fr\'{e}chet-manifold $\operatorname{Imm}(S^1,\mathbb{R}^d)$ provided the order of the metric is greater or equal to one. In addition we show that the $H^s$-metric induces a strong Riemannian metric on the Banach manifold $\mathcal{I}^{s}(S^1,\mathbb{R}^{d})$ of the same order $s$, provided $s>\frac 32$. These investigations can be also interpreted as a generalization of the analysis for right invariant metrics on the diffeomorphism group.