On Planar Shadowing Curves to Closed Escaping Curves

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new dynamical system called the shadowing problem, analyzing how a shadower can chase an escaper along a closed curve, revealing dependence on geometry and shadowing distances, with various behaviors and singularities.

Contribution

It defines the shadowing problem, introduces critical and turning shadowing distances, and characterizes different dynamical behaviors based on geometry and these distances.

Findings

Shadowing curves can be periodic, subharmonic, or ergodic.

Singularities of cusp type occur at large shadowing distances.

Shadowing curves to a circle are analyzed analytically and numerically.

Abstract

We introduce a new dynamical system model called the shadowing problem, where a shadower chases after an escaper by always staring at and keeping the distance from him. When the escaper runs along a planar closed curve, we associate to the reduced shadowing equations the rotation number, and show that it depends only on the geometry of the escaping curve. Two notions called the critical shadowing distance and turning shadowing distance are introduced to characterize different dynamical behaviors. We show that a planar closed escaping curve could have shadowing curves of different types including periodic, subharmonic and ergodic ones, depending on the shadowing distance. Singularities of cusp type are found when the shadowing distance is large. Shadowing curves to an escaping circle are examined in details analytically and numerically. Finally, we conjecture that the critical shadowing distance and turning shadowing distance are coincident for typical escaping curves.