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JOURNALS // Trudy Matematicheskogo Instituta imeni V.A. Steklova // Archive

Trudy Mat. Inst. Steklova, 2018 Volume 302, Pages 143–160 (Mi tm3933)

This article is cited in 4 papers

Dehn invariant and scissors congruence of flexible polyhedra

Alexander A. Gaifullinabcd, Leonid S. Ignashchenkod

a Steklov Mathematical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Gubkina 8, Moscow, 119991 Russia
b Institute for Information Transmission Problems (Kharkevich Institute), Russian Academy of Sciences, Bol'shoi Karetnyi per. 19, str. 1, Moscow, 127051 Russia
c Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, ul. Nobelya 3, Moscow, 121205 Russia
d Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991 Russia

Abstract: We prove that the Dehn invariant of any flexible polyhedron in $n$-dimensional Euclidean space, where $n\ge 3$, is constant during the flexion. For $n=3$ and $4$ this implies that any flexible polyhedron remains scissors congruent to itself during the flexion. This proves the Strong Bellows Conjecture posed by R. Connelly in 1979. It was believed that this conjecture was disproved by V. Alexandrov and R. Connelly in 2009. However, we find an error in their counterexample. Further, we show that the Dehn invariant of a flexible polyhedron in the $n$‑dimensional sphere or $n$-dimensional Lobachevsky space, where $n\ge 3$, is constant during the flexion whenever this polyhedron satisfies the usual Bellows Conjecture, i.e., whenever its volume is constant during every flexion of it. Using previous results of the first named author, we deduce that the Dehn invariant is constant during the flexion for every bounded flexible polyhedron in odd-dimensional Lobachevsky space and for every flexible polyhedron with sufficiently small edge lengths in any space of constant curvature of dimension at least $3$.

Keywords: flexible polyhedron, Dehn invariant, scissors congruence, strong bellows conjecture, analytic continuation.

UDC: 514.174

MSC: Primary 52C25, 52B45; Secondary 51M25, 32D99

Received: March 18, 2018

DOI: 10.1134/S0371968518030068


 English version:
Proceedings of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics, 2018, 302, 130–145

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