We build a new probability measure on closed space and plane polygons. The key construction is a map, given by Knutson and Hausmann using the Hopf map on quaternions, from the complex Stiefel manifold of 2-frames in n-space to the space of closed n-gons in 3-space of total length 2. Our probability measure on polygon space is defined by pushing forward Haar measure on the Stiefel manifold by this map. A similar construction yields a probability measure on plane polygons which comes from a real Stiefel manifold.The edgelengths of polygons sampled according to our measures obey beta distributions. This makes our polygon measures different from those usually studied, which have Gaussian or fixed edgelengths. One advantage of our measures is that we can explicitly compute expectations and moments for chordlengths and radii of gyration. Another is that direct sampling according to our measures is fast (linear in the number of edges) and easy to code. Some of our methods will be of independent interest in studying other probability measures on polygon spaces. We define an edge set ensemble (ESE) to be the set of polygons created by rearranging a given set of n edges. A key theorem gives a formula for the average over an ESE of the squared lengths of chords skipping k vertices in terms of k, n, and the edgelengths of the ensemble. This allows one to easily compute expected values of squared chordlengths and radii of gyration for any probability measure on polygon space invariant under rearrangements of edges.

A closed equilateral random walk in 3-space is a selection of unit length vectors giving the steps of the walk conditioned on the assumption that the sum of the vectors is zero. The sample space of such walks with $n$ edges is the $(2n-3)$-dimensional Riemannian manifold of equilateral closed polygons in $\mathbb{R}^3$. We study closed random walks using the symplectic geometry of the $(2n-6)$-dimensional quotient of the manifold of polygons by the action of the rotation group $\operatorname {SO}(3)$. The basic objects of study are the moment maps on equilateral random polygon space given by the lengths of any $(n-3)$-tuple of nonintersecting diagonals. The Atiyah-Guillemin-Sternberg theorem shows that the image of such a moment map is a convex polytope in $(n-3)$-dimensional space, while the Duistermaat-Heckman theorem shows that the pushforward measure on this polytope is Lebesgue measure on $\mathbb{R}^{n-3}$. Together, these theorems allow us to define a measure-preserving set of "action-angle" coordinates on the space of closed equilateral polygons. The new coordinate system allows us to make explicit computations of exact expectations for total curvature and for some chord lengths of closed (and confined) equilateral random walks, to give statistical criteria for sampling algorithms on the space of polygons and to prove that the probability that a randomly chosen equilateral hexagon is unknotted is at least $\frac{1}{2}$. We then use our methods to construct a new Markov chain sampling algorithm for equilateral closed polygons, with a simple modification to sample (rooted) confined equilateral closed polygons. We prove rigorously that our algorithm converges geometrically to the standard measure on the space of closed random walks, give a theory of error estimators for Markov chain Monte Carlo integration using our method and analyze the performance of our method. Our methods also apply to open random walks in certain types of confinement, and in general to walks with arbitrary (fixed) edgelengths as well as equilateral walks.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/15-AAP1100 in the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

To each three-component link in the 3-sphere we associate a generalized Gauss map from the 3-torus to the 2-sphere, and show that the pairwise linking numbers and Milnor triple linking number that classify the link up to link homotopy correspond to the Pontryagin invariants that classify its generalized Gauss map up to homotopy. We view this as a natural extension of the familiar situation for two-component links in 3-space, where the linking number is the degree of the classical Gauss map from the 2-torus to the 2-sphere. The generalized Gauss map, like its prototype, is geometrically natural in the sense that it is equivariant with respect to orientationpreserving isometries of the ambient space, thus positioning it for application to physical situations. When the pairwise linking numbers of a three-component link are all zero, we give an integral formula for the triple linking number analogous to the Gauss integral for the pairwise linking numbers. This new integral is also geometrically natural, like its prototype, in the sense that the integrand is invariant under orientation-preserving isometries of the ambient space. Versions of this integral have been applied by Komendarczyk in special cases to problems of higher order helicity and derivation of lower bounds for the energy of magnetic fields. We have set this entire paper in the 3-sphere because our generalized Gauss map is easiest to present here, but in a subsequent paper we will give the corresponding maps and integral formulas in Euclidean 3-space. C 2013 American Institute of Physics.

We consider the problem of finding the probability that a random triangle is obtuse, which was first raised by Lewis Caroll. Our investigation leads us to a natural correspondence between plane polygons and the Grassmann manifold of 2-planes in real n-space proposed by Allen Knutson and Jean-Claude Hausmann. This correspondence defines a natural probability measure on plane polygons. In these terms, we answer Caroll's question. We then explore the Grassmannian geometry of planar quadrilaterals, providing an answer to Sylvester's four-point problem, and describing explicitly the moduli space of unordered quadrilaterals. All of this provides a concrete introduction to a family of metrics used in shape classification and computer vision.The issue of choosing a "random triangle" is indeed problematic. I believe the difficulty is explained in large measure by the fact that there seems to be no natural group of transitive transformations acting on the set of triangles.-Stephen Portnoy A Lewis Carroll pillow problem: Probability of an obtuse triangle Statistical Science, 1994In 1895, the mathematician Charles L. Dodgson, better known by his pseudonym Lewis Carroll, published a book of 72 mathematical puzzles called "pillow problems", which he claimed to have solved while lying in bed. The pillow problems mostly concern discrete probability, but there is a single problem in continuous probability in the collection:Three points are taken at random on an infinite plane. Find the chance of their being the vertices of an obtuse-angled triangle. This is a very appealing problem and a number of authors have tackled it in the years since. After a moment's thought, it is clear that the main issue here is that the problem is ill-posed-since there is no translation-invariant probability distribution on the infinite plane, the problem must really refer to a natural probability distribution on the space of triangles. But what probability distribution on triangle space is the right one? Portnoy [23] presented several different solutions to the problem involving distributions on triangle space invariant under various groups of transformations; Edelman and Strang [9] connect the problem to random matrix theory and shape statistics; Guy [10] got the answer 3/4 for a variety of measures, and the legendary statistician David Kendall got exact answers when the vertices of the triangle were chosen at random in a convex body [16]. Interestingly,

Sampling equilateral closed polygons is of interest in the statistical study of ring polymers. Over the past 30 years, previous authors have proposed a variety of simple Markov chain algorithms (but have not been able to show that they converge to the correct probability distribution) and complicated direct samplers (which require extended-precision arithmetic to evaluate numerically unstable polynomials). We present a simple direct sampler which is fast and numerically stable, and analyze its runtime using a new formula for the volume of equilateral polygon space as a Dirichlet-type integral.