A Möbius invariant discretization and decomposition of the Möbius energy

Abstract

The Möbius energy, defined by O'Hara, is one of the knot energies, and named after the Möbius invariant property which was shown by Freedman-He-Wang. The energy can be decomposed into three parts, each of which is Möbius invariant, proved by Ishizeki-Nagasawa. Several discrete versions of Möbius energy, that is, corresponding energies for polygons, are known, and it showed that they converge to the continuum version as the number of vertices to infinity. However already-known discrete energies lost the property of Möbius invariance, nor the Möbius invariant decomposition. Here a new discretization of the Möbius energy is proposed. It has the Möbius invariant property, and can be decomposed into the Möbius invariant components which converge to the original components of decomposition in the continuum limit. Though the decomposed energies are Möbius invariant, their densities are not. As a by-product, it is shown that the decomposed energies have alternative representation with the Möbius invariant densities.