text:
# A New Proof of the Channel Coding Theorem via Hypothesis Testing in Quantum Information Theory

## 1 Introduction

Let $``$ be a Hilbert space which represents a physical system of information carrier. We suppose $`dim<\mathrm{}`$ for mathematical simplicity. Let $`()`$ be the set of linear operators on $``$ and define the totality of density operators on $``$ by

$`𝒮()\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left\{\rho ()\right|\rho =\rho ^{}0,\text{Tr}[\rho ]=1\}.`$ (1)
We will treat a quantum channel defined by a mapping $`x𝒳\rho _x𝒮()`$, where $`𝒳`$ is a finite set of input alphabets and each $`\rho _x`$ represents the quantum state of the output signal.

An encoding-decoding system of the message over the $`n`$-th extension of the channel is described as follows. Each message $`k\{1,\mathrm{},M_n\}`$ is encoded to a codeword $`u^k=x_1^k\mathrm{}x_n^k`$ in a codebook $`𝒞^n=\{u^1,\mathrm{},u^{M_n}\}`$ $`𝒳^n`$ by an encoder, where $`𝒳^n`$ is the $`n`$-th direct product of $`𝒳`$, and the codeword $`u^k`$ is mapped to $`\rho _{u^k}=\rho _{x_1^k}\mathrm{}\rho _{x_n^k}𝒮(^n)`$ through the channel. The decoding process, which is called a decoder, is represented by a set $`X^n=\{X_1,X_2,\mathrm{},X_{M_n}\}`$ of nonnegative operators on $`^n`$ satisfying $`_{k=1}^{M_n}X_kI_n`$, implying that $`X^n`$ with $`X_0\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}I_n_{k=1}^{M_n}X_k`$ becomes a quantum measurement on $`^n`$ taking its value in $`\{0,1,\mathrm{},M_n\}`$. A pair of encoding and decoding processes $`(𝒞^n,X^n)`$ is called a code with cardinality $`M_n`$ or with transmission rate $`R_n=\mathrm{log}M_n/n`$.

The probability that the decoder outputs a message $`k`$ when a message $`l`$ is sent is given by $`\text{Tr}[\rho _{u^l}X_k]`$. Thus, assuming that all messages arise with the uniform probability, the average error probability of the code $`(𝒞^n,X^n)`$ is given by

$`\text{Pe}(𝒞^n,X^n)\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M_n}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M_n}{}}}\left(1\text{Tr}[\rho _{u^k}X_k]\right).`$ (2)
Our interest lies in asymptotically achievable transmission rates with arbitrarily small error. The channel capacity is defined as the supremum of those values:

$`C\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}sup\left\{R\right|\left\{(𝒞^n,X^n)\right\}_{n=1}^{\mathrm{}}\text{such that}\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\text{Pe}(𝒞^n,X^n)=0\text{and}\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\mathrm{log}M_nR\}.`$ (3)
In order to describe the quantum channel coding theorem, let us introduce the quantum mutual information  as follows. Let $`𝒫(𝒳)`$ be the totality of the probability distributions on $`𝒳`$, and let $`\sigma _p\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}_{x𝒳}p(x)\rho _x`$ be the mixture state by some $`p𝒫(𝒳)`$. Then the quantum mutual information is defined by

$`I(p)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}H(\sigma _p){\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)H(\rho _x)`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)D(\rho _x\sigma _p),`$ (4)
where $`H(\rho )\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}[\rho \mathrm{log}\rho ]`$ is the von Neumann entropy and $`D(\rho \sigma )\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}[\rho (\mathrm{log}\rho \mathrm{log}\sigma )]`$ is the quantum relative entropy. One of the most significant theorems in quantum information theory is the quantum channel coding theorem:

$`C=\underset{p𝒫(𝒳)}{\mathrm{max}}I(p).`$ (5)
The theorem is composed of two inequalities: the direct part ($``$) and the converse part ($``$). The direct part is given by showing the existence of a good code, and was established in the middle of the 1990’s by Holevo  and independently by Schumacher and Westmoreland  after the breakthrough by Hausladen et al. . The classical counterpart of the method used there is thought as a variant of the joint typical decoding  along with the random coding technique. On the other hand, the converse part, concerned with nonexistence of too good code, goes back to 1970’s works by Holevo  . In 1999, another proof of the direct part was also given by Winter , in which he developed the method of type   in the quantum setting followed by a greedy construction of a good code.

In classical channel coding, the most transparent proof of the direct part is thought to be Feinstein’s proof   (see also ), the essence of which is described below. Let $`w^n(y^n|x^n)`$ be a channel matrix transmitting an input sequence $`x^n=x_1\mathrm{}x_n𝒳^n`$ to an output sequence $`y^n=y_1\mathrm{}y_n𝒴^n`$, where $`𝒳^n`$ and $`𝒴^n`$ are the $`n`$-th direct products of the sets $`𝒳`$ and $`𝒴`$ of input alphabets and output alphabets, respectively. The channel is called stationary memoryless if $`w^n(y^n|x^n)=w(y_1|x_1)\mathrm{}w(y_n|x_n)`$ holds with a one-shot channel $`w(y|x)(x𝒳,y𝒴)`$. If the input $`X^n=X_1\mathrm{}X_n`$ is a random variable taking its value in $`𝒳^n`$ subject to a probability distribution $`p^n(x^n)(x^n𝒳^n)`$, then the output $`Y^n=Y_1\mathrm{}Y_n`$ and the pair $`(X^n,Y^n)`$ also become random variables subject to $`q^n(y^n)=_{x^n𝒳^n}p^n(x^n)w(y^n|x^n)`$ and $`p^n(x^n)w^n(y^n|x^n)`$, respectively. In the first part of Feinstein’s proof, it is shown that if we have

$`\mathrm{Pr}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\mathrm{log}{\displaystyle \frac{w^n(Y^n|X^n)}{q^n(Y^n)}}a\right\}0(n\mathrm{})`$ (6)
for a real number $`a`$, then we can construct a reliable code with transmission rate arbitrarily near $`a`$. In the second part, assuming that $`p^n(x^n)`$ is the independently and identically distributed (i.i.d.) extension of a probability distribution $`p(x)(x𝒳)`$ and $`w^n(y^n|x^n)`$ is a stationary memoryless channel, (6) is shown for $`a<I(X;Y)`$ by the law of large numbers, where $`I(X;Y)`$ is the classical mutual information for the random variables $`(X,Y)`$ subject to $`p(x)w(y|x)`$. As for the first part, no assumption such as the stationary memoryless property for the channel is needed, which led to a general formula for the classical channel capacity by Verdú-Han  as one of the landmarks in the information-spectrum method . As ways of providing the first part, two different methods are known so far; the random coding technique and the packing algorithm, both of which give us an important insight into the construction of good codes.

In this paper 111 The prototype of the results was given in .  a new proof of the direct part for the stationary memoryless quantum channel is shown based on a limiting theorem  in quantum hypothesis testing, which is regarded as a variant of Hiai-Petz’s theorem , combined with a packing procedure for operators following Winter  to obtain a good code. The limiting theorem in quantum hypothesis testing is thought to be a substitute for the law of large numbers used to show (6) in classical information theory. The approach used here is regarded as an attempt to develop the information-spectrum method  in quantum channel coding, which was followed by Hayashi-Nagaoka  with further developments using the random coding technique to obtain a general formula for the channel capacity in the quantum setting. It should be noted here, however, any packing algorithm to derive the general formula is not established yet.

## 2 Relation with Hypothesis Testing

In the sequel, $`\sigma _p=_{x𝒳}p(x)\rho _x`$ is written as $`\sigma `$ omitting the subscript $`p`$ when no confusion is likely to arise. Let us define block diagonal matrices 222 The extensions of the density operators used here were considered by  in an attempt to relate Hiai-Petz’s theorem to channel coding. ,

$`\widehat{\rho }`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{}& & \text{0}\\ & p(x)\rho _x& \\ \text{0}& & \mathrm{}\end{array}\right),`$ $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\mathrm{}& & \text{0}\\ & p(x)\sigma & \\ \text{0}& & \mathrm{}\end{array}\right),`$ (7)
which are density operators in $`𝒮\left(_{x𝒳}\right)`$ and denoted as

$`\widehat{\rho }`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)\rho _x,`$ $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)\sigma ,`$ (8)
respectively. It is important to note that the quantum mutual information is nothing but the quantum relative entropy between $`\widehat{\rho }`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }`$, i.e., $`D(\widehat{\rho }\widehat{\sigma })=I(p)`$. In the same way the $`n`$-th tensor powers of $`\widehat{\rho }`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }`$ are given by the following block diagonal matrices

$`\widehat{\rho }^n`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}p^n(x^n)\rho _{x^n},`$ $`\widehat{\sigma }^n`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}p^n(x^n)\sigma ^n`$ (9)
in $`𝒮\left(_{x^n𝒳^n}^n\right)`$, respectively, where we used the following notations for each $`x^n=x_1x_2\mathrm{}x_n𝒳^n`$

$`p^n(x^n)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}p(x_1)p(x_2)\mathrm{}p(x_n),`$ (10)
$`\rho _{x^n}`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\rho _{x_1}\rho _{x_2}\mathrm{}\rho _{x_n}.`$ (11)
Here, let $`_{\widehat{\sigma }^n}\left(\widehat{\rho }^n\right)`$ be the pinching defined in Appendix A. Applying Lemma 3 in Appendix A inductively, we can show that

$`_{\widehat{\sigma }^n}\left(\widehat{\rho }^n\right)={\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}p^n(x^n)_{\sigma ^n}\left(\rho _{x^n}\right).`$ (12)
In order to relate the above observation to the channel coding theorem, let us introduce the quantum hypothesis testing problem here, which is explained concisely in Appendix B, and examine the error probability of a test as follows. Given a Hermitian operator $`X=_ix_iE_i`$, define the projection $`\left\{X>0\right\}`$ by

$`\left\{X>0\right\}\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}{\displaystyle \underset{i:x_i>0}{}}E_i.`$ (13)
With the above notation, we define a test for the hypotheses $`\widehat{\rho }^n`$ and $`\widehat{\sigma }^n`$ as

$`\widehat{S}_n(a)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left\{_{\widehat{\sigma }^n}\left(\widehat{\rho }^n\right)e^{na}\widehat{\sigma }^n>0\right\}`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}\left\{_{\sigma ^n}\left(\rho _{x^n}\right)e^{na}\sigma ^n>0\right\},`$ (14)
where $`a`$ is a real parameter and the last equality follows from (12). The error probability of the first kind for the test is written as follows by using the notation $`\overline{\rho }_{x^n}\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}_{\sigma ^n}\left(\rho _{x^n}\right)`$

$`\widehat{\alpha }_n\left(\widehat{S}_n(a)\right)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}\left[\widehat{\rho }^n\left(I_n\widehat{S}_n(a)\right)\right]`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}p^n(x^n)\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_{x^n}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{x^n}e^{na}\sigma ^n0\right\}\right],`$ (15)
which tends to zero exponentially if $`a<D(\widehat{\rho }\widehat{\sigma })`$ by Lemma 4 in Appendix B . Thus we have shown the following lemma as an analogue of (6) in quantum channel coding.

###### Lemma 1

For $`a<I(p)`$, we have

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}p^n(x^n)\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_{x^n}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{x^n}e^{na}\sigma ^n0\right\}\right]=0.`$ (16)
## 3 Greedy Construction of a Code

In the previous section, we have shown the achievability of the quantum mutual information in the sense of Lemma 1. Needless to say, this does not directly mean the achievability concerned with the error probability nor the transmission rate, since the tests $`\left\{\overline{\rho }_{x^n}e^{na}\sigma ^n>0\right\}`$ for different $`x^n`$ do not commute each other and can not be realized simultaneously on $`^n`$. In this section we will give a packing procedure of the tests to meet the condition of the quantum measurement on $`^n`$, which leads to the following lemma.

###### Lemma 2

Let $`x𝒳\rho _x𝒮()`$ be a quantum channel, and let $`\sigma \stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}_{x𝒳}p(x)\rho _x`$ be the mixture state by a probability distribution $`p𝒫(𝒳)`$. Suppose that the following condition holds for the pinching $`\overline{\rho }_x\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}_\sigma \left(\rho _x\right)`$ with some real numbers $`\delta 0`$ and $`c>0`$:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_x\left\{\overline{\rho }_xc\sigma >0\right\}\right]1\delta .`$ (17)
Then, for any real numbers $`\gamma >0`$ and $`\eta >0`$, there exist a codebook $`𝒞=\{u_k\}_{k=1}^M𝒳`$ with cardinality $`M`$ and a decoder $`X=\{X_k\}_{k=1}^M`$ on $``$ such that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\gamma +\delta }}\mathrm{min}\{\eta ,1\delta \gamma 2\sqrt{\eta }\}{\displaystyle \frac{M}{c}},`$ (18)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{M}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\left(1\text{Tr}[\rho _{u_k}X_k]\right)\delta +\gamma +2\sqrt{\eta }.`$ (19)
Before proceeding to the proof of Lemma 2, let us consider the $`n`$-th extension of the lemma replacing the symbols above as follows:

$`𝒳𝒳^n,\rho _x\rho _{x^n},pp^n,\sigma \sigma ^n,ce^{na},\gamma \gamma _n,\eta e^{n\lambda },`$ (20)
where $`a`$ is a real number and $`\lambda >0`$ is an arbitrarily small number. Letting $`\overline{\rho }_{x^n}=_{\sigma ^n}\left(\rho _{x^n}\right)`$, we can easily see that (17) is satisfied by setting the following $`\delta _n(a)`$ in place of $`\delta `$,

$`\delta _n(a)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}{\displaystyle \underset{x^n𝒳^n}{}}p^n(x^n)\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_{x^n}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{x^n}e^{na}\sigma ^n0\right\}\right].`$ (21)
Therefore we obtain the following theorem using Lemma 2.

###### Theorem 1

With the above notation, there exist a codebook $`𝒞^n=\{u^k\}_{k=1}^{M_n}𝒳^n`$ with cardinality $`M_n`$ and a decoder $`X^n=\{X_k\}_{k=1}^{M_n}`$ on $`^n`$ such that

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _n}{\gamma _n+\delta _n(a)}}\mathrm{min}\{e^{n\lambda },1\delta _n(a)\gamma _n2\sqrt{e^{n\lambda }}\}e^{na}M_n,`$ (22)
$`\text{Pe}(𝒞^n,X^n)\delta _n(a)+\gamma _n+2\sqrt{e^{n\lambda }}.`$ (23)
For any $`a<I(p)`$, we have $`lim_n\mathrm{}\delta _n(a)=0`$ by Lemma 1, and hence we can choose $`\gamma _n`$ such that $`lim_n\mathrm{}\gamma _n=0`$ and $`lim_n\mathrm{}\frac{\gamma _n}{\gamma _n+\delta _n(a)}`$ $`=1`$. Therefore the above theorem yields

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\mathrm{log}M_na,`$ (24)
$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\text{Pe}(𝒞^n,X^n)=0,`$ (25)
since $`\lambda >0`$ can be arbitrarily small. Thus we have given a new proof of the direct part of the quantum channel coding theorem except that the proof of Lemma 2 remains to be shown.

Proof of Lemma 2:  To begin with, let us define a set of candidates for codewords by

$`𝒳^{}\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left\{x𝒳\right|\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_x\left\{\overline{\rho }_xc\sigma >0\right\}]1\delta \gamma \}.`$ (26)
Then the probability of $`𝒳^{}`$ is bounded below as

$`p(𝒳^{})\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}{\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳^{}}{}}p(x){\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\gamma +\delta }},`$ (27)
which is verified as follows:

$`1\delta `$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_x\left\{\overline{\rho }_xc\sigma >0\right\}]`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳^{}}{}}p(x)\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_x\left\{\overline{\rho }_xc\sigma >0\right\}]+{\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳\backslash 𝒳^{}}{}}p(x)\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_x\left\{\overline{\rho }_xc\sigma >0\right\}]`$
$`p(𝒳^{})+(1p(𝒳^{}))(1\delta \gamma ).`$ (28)
Utilizing the normalization technique for operators developed by Winter (see the proof of Theorem 10 in ), a codebook $`𝒞=\{u_k\}_{k=1}^M𝒳^{}`$ and a decoder $`X=\{X_k\}_{k=1}^M`$ are constructed by the following greedy algorithm, along with the operators $`S_k()(k=0,1,\mathrm{},M)`$ for normalization.

1. Let $`S_0=0`$.
2. Repeat the following procedures for $`k=1,2,\mathrm{}`$.

1. If there exists an $`x𝒳^{}\backslash \{u_1,\mathrm{},u_{k1}\}`$ such that $`\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_xS_{k1}]\eta `$, then choose such an $`x`$ arbitrarily and define

    $`u_k`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}x,`$
    $`X_k`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\}\sqrt{IS_{k1}},`$
    $`S_k`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}S_{k1}+X_k,`$
    else go to (c).
    2. Let $`kk+1`$ and go back to (b-1).
3. Letting $`Mk`$, $`𝒞\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\{u_k\}_{k=1}^M`$ and $`X\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\{X_k\}_{k=1}^M`$, end the algorithm.

It should be noted here that each of $`X_k`$ and $`S_k`$ commutes with $`\sigma `$, and each $`S_k`$ satisfies the following inequalities

$`0S_kI,`$ (29)
which follows from

$`0\left\{\overline{\rho }_xc\sigma >0\right\}I`$ (30)
and induction. Moreover it holds that for $`x𝒳^{}\backslash 𝒞`$

$`\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_xS_M]>\eta ,`$ (31)
while for any codeword $`u_k𝒞`$ we have $`\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_{u_k}S_{k1}]\eta `$. Thus, applying Winter’s gentle measurement lemma (Lemma 9 in , see Appendix C), we obtain

$`\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\sqrt{IS_{k1}}_12\sqrt{\eta }.`$ (32)
Therefore, using the property of the pinching (41), we have

$`\text{Tr}[\rho _{u_k}X_k]`$ $`=\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_{u_k}X_k]`$
$`=\text{Tr}\left[\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}\right]`$
$`=\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}\right]\text{Tr}\left[\left(\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\right)\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}\right]`$
$`\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}]2\sqrt{\eta }`$
$`1\delta \gamma 2\sqrt{\eta },`$ (33)
where the last inequality follows from $`u_k𝒳^{}`$, and hence

$`\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_{u_k}S_M]`$ $`=\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_{u^k}\left({\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M}{}}}X_k\right)\right]`$
$`\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_{u^k}X_k]`$
$`1\delta \gamma 2\sqrt{\eta }.`$ (34)
Now, in order to evaluate the cardinality of the code $`M`$, we will estimate the lower and upper bound of $`\text{Tr}[\sigma S_M]`$. Using (31) and (34), the lower bound is obtained as

$`\text{Tr}[\sigma S_M]`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳}{}}p(x)\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_xS_M]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳^{}}{}}p(x)\text{Tr}[\overline{\rho }_xS_M]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{x𝒳^{}}{}}p(x)\mathrm{min}\{\eta ,1\delta \gamma 2\sqrt{\eta }\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{\gamma +\delta }}\mathrm{min}\{\eta ,1\delta \gamma 2\sqrt{\eta }\},`$ (35)
where the last inequality follows from (27). On the other hand, $`\text{Tr}[\sigma S_M]`$ is bounded above as

$`\text{Tr}[\sigma S_M]`$ $`={\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\text{Tr}[\sigma X_k]`$
$`={\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\text{Tr}\left[\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\sigma \sqrt{IS_{k1}}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M}{}}}\text{Tr}\left[\sigma \left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}\right],`$ (36)
since we have $`\sqrt{IS_{k1}}\sigma \sqrt{IS_{k1}}\sigma `$, which follows from (29) and the fact that each $`\sqrt{IS_{k1}}`$ commutes with $`\sigma `$. Moreover, (36) is bounded above further as

$`\text{Tr}[\sigma S_M]`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{M}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{c}}\text{Tr}\left[\overline{\rho }_{u_k}\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{c}}`$ (37)
by the definition of $`\left\{\overline{\rho }_{u_k}c\sigma >0\right\}`$. Now the assertion (18) is shown by combining the lower bound (35) with the upper bound (37), and (19) follows from (33).

## 4 Concluding Remarks

We have revisited the direct part of the quantum channel coding theorem   considering the relation with the hypothesis testing problem, and an upper bound on the error probability similar to Feinstein’s lemma  has been obtained. The approach used here is regarded as an attempt to develop the information-spectrum method  in quantum channel coding.

## Appendices

## A A property of the pinching

We summarize a property of the pinching related to a $``$-subalgebra in $`()`$ for readers’ convenience. In the sequel, we denote the $``$-algebra generated by operators $`\{I,A_1,A_2,\mathrm{}\}()`$ as $`[[A_1,A_2,\mathrm{}]]`$. Given a Hermitian operator $`A()`$, let

$`A={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{v}{}}}a_iE_i`$ (38)
be its spectral decomposition, where each $`E_i`$ is the projection corresponding to an eigenvalue $`a_i`$ different from others and $`v`$ is the number of the eigenvalues. Then we can easily see that $`[[A]]=[[E_1,\mathrm{},E_v]]`$ holds. Actually, it is clear that we have the inclusion $`[[A]][[E_1,\mathrm{},E_v]]`$ from (38). On the other hand, considering the following function for each $`i`$,

$`f_i(x)\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}{\displaystyle \underset{j:ji}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{xa_j}{a_ia_j}},`$ (39)
we have $`E_i=f_i(A)`$, which yields the converse inclusion $`[[A]][[E_1,\mathrm{},E_v]]`$.

Let us denote the commutant of $`[[A]]`$ as

$`[[A]]^{}`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left\{B(H)\right|C[[A]],BC=CB\}`$
$`=\left\{B(H)\right|BA=AB\}`$
$`=\left\{B(H)\right|BE_i=E_iB(i=1,\mathrm{},v)\}.`$ (40)
Then the pinching $`_A:()[[A]]^{}()`$ is defined as the projection of an operator to the $``$-subalgebra $`[[A]]^{}`$ so that

$`C[[A]]^{},B,C=_A(B),C`$ (41)
holds for $`B()`$, where

$`A,B\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}[A^{}B]`$ (42)
is the Hilbert-Schmidt inner product. Note that the pinching can be written explicitly as

$`_A(B)={\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{v}{}}}E_iBE_i.`$ (43)
We used the following property of the pinching to show (12) in the section 2.

###### Lemma 3

Let $`A,B,C,D()`$, and define block diagonal matrices on $``$ by $`X\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}AB`$ and $`Y\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}CD`$ with the same notation as used in the section 2. Then we have

$`_Y(X)=_C(A)_D(B).`$ (44)
Proof:  For any operator $`Z=\left(\begin{array}{cc}Z_{11}& Z_{12}\\ Z_{21}& Z_{22}\end{array}\right)[[Y]]^{}`$, $`ZY=YZ`$ yields $`Z_{11}[[C]]^{}`$ and $`Z_{22}[[D]]^{}`$ by a direct calculation. Thus, we have

$`\text{Tr}[XZ]`$ $`=\text{Tr}[AZ_{11}]+\text{Tr}[BZ_{22}]`$
$`=\text{Tr}[_C(A)Z_{11}]+\text{Tr}[_D(B)Z_{22}]`$
$`=\text{Tr}\left[\left(_C(A)_D(B)\right)Z\right].`$ (45)
Now the assertion has been proved, since $`_C(A)_D(B)[[Y]]^{}`$ is obvious and $`Z[[Y]]^{}`$ is arbitrary.

## B Hiai-Petz’s Theorem and its variants

In this appendix we summarize Hiai-Petz’s theorem  and its variants  in quantum hypothesis testing, which is used to show Lemma 1. Given $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ in $`𝒮()`$, let us consider the hypothesis testing problem about hypotheses $`H_0:\rho ^n𝒮(^n)`$ and $`H_1:\sigma ^n𝒮(^n)`$. The problem is to decide which hypothesis is true based on a two-valued quantum measurement $`\{X_0,X_1\}`$ on $`^n`$, where the subscripts $`0`$ and $`1`$ indicate the acceptance of $`H_0`$ and $`H_1`$, respectively. In the sequel, an operator $`A_n(^n)`$ satisfying inequalities $`0A_nI_n`$ is called a test, since $`A_n`$ is identified with the measurement $`\{A_n,I_nA_n\}`$. For a test $`A_n`$, the error probabilities of the first kind and the second kind are, respectively, defined by

$`\alpha _n(A_n)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}[\rho ^n(I_nA_n)],`$ $`\beta _n(A_n)`$ $`\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}[\sigma ^nA_n].`$ (46)
For $`0<\epsilon <1`$, let us define

$`\beta _n^{}(\epsilon )\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\mathrm{min}\{\beta _n(A_n)`$ $`|A_n:\text{test},\alpha _n(A_n)\epsilon \},`$ (47)
and recall the quantum relative entropy:

$`D(\rho \sigma )\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\text{Tr}[\rho (\mathrm{log}\rho \mathrm{log}\sigma )].`$ (48)
Then we have the following theorem, which is called the quantum Stein’s lemma:

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\mathrm{log}\beta _n^{}(\epsilon )=D(\rho \sigma ).`$ (49)
The first proof of (49) was shown by two inequalities. One is the direct part given by Hiai-Petz :

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\mathrm{log}\beta _n^{}(\epsilon )D(\rho \sigma ),`$ (50)
and the other is the converse part given by Ogawa-Nagaoka .

Preceding the direct part (50), Hiai-Petz  proved the following theorem

$`D(\rho \sigma )=\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{n}}\underset{M_n}{sup}D_{M_n}\left(\rho ^n\sigma ^n\right),`$ (51)
where the supremum is taken over the set of quantum measurements on $`^n`$, and $`D_{M_n}\left(\rho ^n\sigma ^n\right)`$ is the classical relative entropy (Kullback divergence) between the probability distributions $`\left\{\text{Tr}[\rho ^nM_{n,i}]\right\}`$ and $`\left\{\text{Tr}[\sigma ^nM_{n,i}]\right\}`$. Note that the monotonicity of the quantum relative entropy   yields $`D(\rho \sigma )1/nD_{M_n}\left(\rho ^n\sigma ^n\right)`$ for any measurement $`M_n`$, and in addition there exists a measurement that attains the equality if and only if $`\rho `$ and $`\sigma `$ mutually commute. Hiai-Petz combined (51) with the classical hypothesis testing problem to show the direct part (50).

In recent developments  , we found direct proofs of (50) without using the achievability of the information quantity (51). Here, we will make use of a simple test defined below with the notation (13) and the pinching $`_{\sigma ^n}\left(\rho ^n\right)`$ (see Appendix A):

$`\overline{S}_n(a)\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\left\{_{\sigma ^n}\left(\rho ^n\right)e^{na}\sigma ^n>0\right\},`$ (52)
which satisfies the following lemma (see Theorem 2 in ).

###### Lemma 4 (Ogawa-Hayashi)

For $`0s1`$, we have

$`\alpha _n\left(\overline{S}_n(a)\right)`$ $`(n+1)^{sdim}e^{n[as\psi (s)]},`$ (53)
$`\beta _n\left(\overline{S}_n(a)\right)`$ $`e^{na},`$ (54)
where

$`\psi (s)\stackrel{\mathrm{def}}{=}\mathrm{log}\text{Tr}\left[\rho \sigma ^{\frac{s}{2}}\rho ^s\sigma ^{\frac{s}{2}}\right].`$ (55)
Observing that $`\psi (0)=0`$ and $`\psi ^{}(0)=D(\rho \sigma )`$, we can show that for $`a<D(\rho \sigma )`$

$`\underset{n\mathrm{}}{lim}\alpha _n\left(\overline{S}_n(a)\right)`$ $`=0,`$ $`\beta _n\left(\overline{S}_n(a)\right)`$ $`e^{na}.`$ (56)
## C Winter’s Lemma

In this appendix Winter’s gentle measurement lemma (Lemma 9 in ) is explained. The original proof of the lemma by Winter is based on a study of the relation between the trace norm distance and the fidelity. Here, a direct proof of the lemma is given for readers’ convenience accompanied by a little improvement of the constant in the upper bound.

###### Lemma 5 (Winter)

For $`\rho 𝒮()`$ and $`X()`$ satisfying inequalities $`0XI`$, we have

$`\rho \sqrt{X}\rho \sqrt{X}_12\sqrt{\text{Tr}[\rho (IX)]}.`$ (57)
Proof:  A direct calculation yields

$`\rho \sqrt{X}\rho \sqrt{X}_1`$ $`=\left(I\sqrt{X}+\sqrt{X}\right)\rho \sqrt{X}\rho \sqrt{X}_1`$
$`\left(I\sqrt{X}\right)\rho _1+\sqrt{X}\rho \left(I\sqrt{X}\right)_1`$ (58)
$`=\text{Tr}\left|\left(I\sqrt{X}\right)\sqrt{\rho }\sqrt{\rho }\right|+\text{Tr}\left|\sqrt{X}\sqrt{\rho }\sqrt{\rho }\left(I\sqrt{X}\right)\right|`$
$`\sqrt{\text{Tr}\left[\rho \left(I\sqrt{X}\right)^2\right]\text{Tr}[\rho ]}+\sqrt{\text{Tr}\left[\rho X\right]\text{Tr}\left[\rho \left(I\sqrt{X}\right)^2\right]}`$ (59)
$`2\sqrt{\text{Tr}[\rho (IX)]},`$ (60)
where (58) follows from the triangle inequality, (59) follows from the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality for operators, and we used $`\left(1\sqrt{x}\right)^2(1x)`$ for $`0x1`$ and $`\text{Tr}[\rho X]1`$ in (60).

## Acknowledgment

This research was partially supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology Grant-in-Aid for Encouragement of Young Scientists, 13750058, 2001.


format: text

text:
# The Shape of the Edge of a Leaf

## I Introduction

A characteristic rippled pattern often appears at the edges of leaves and flowers. One can even produce it by ripping in half a thin sheet of plastic, such as a plastic bagSharon et al. (2002). A numerical example of a stretched sheet with two generations of waves appears in Figure 1. I have found a case where the mathematics of this problem can be solved exactly.

This topic touches on an interesting basic question, which concerns the complexity of the instructions needed to generate complex natural patterns. The dominant belief among biologists is that the curling shapes of plants are produced by detailed genetic instructions telling various sections to curl up and downByrne et al. (2001). The physics community interested in studying patterns would prefer to assume that complex forms are produced when possible by simple rules, a view with some support also among biologistsGreen et al. (1996); Green (1999). It is natural to guess that by imposing non–flat metrics upon thin sheets, elasticity alone will compel them to curl spontaneously into fractal forms. However, to proceed from a guess to a detailed demonstration requires some effort.

The basic question addressed throughout this paper is the following: Suppose one has a rectangular sheet of material, described by coordinates $`x`$ and $`y`$. Take this rectangular strip and impose a new metric on it so that distances $`dr`$ between nearby points originally separated by $`(dx,dy)`$ are given by

$$dr^\mathrm{2}=g_{xx}dx^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{2}g_{xy}dxdy+g_{yy}dy^\mathrm{2}.$$
(1)
Embed the sheet in three–dimensional space, allowing it to curl as needed to obey this new metric. What shape does it take?

The main results in the paper are the following:

* Use of results from differential geometry to find when axisymmetric sheets wrapped into cylinders are stable against buckling (Section II).
* Energy functional for a model of a thin sheet with non–flat metric as a collection of interacting mass points (Section III).
* Derivation of continuum nonlinear elastic theory from the original energy functional (Section IV)
* Definition of solvable problem in thin strip with linear gradient in metric in terms of a set of ordinary differential equations (Section V).
* Exact solution of these ordinary differential equations in terms of elementary function when certain bending and torsion angles in them are specified in specific ways (Sections VI–VIII).
* Calculation of continuum energy functional in terms of the solutions of the ordinary differential equations (Section IX).
* Derivation of Euler–Lagrange equations from continuum energy functional, demonstration that analytical solutions of previous sections correspond to energy minimizing solutions when special boundary conditions are imposed (Section X).
* Numerical solutions of Euler–Lagrange equations to find shapes of strips for more general boundary conditions (Section XI).

Nechaev and VoituriezNechaev and Voituriez (2001) and Henderson and Taimina Henderson and Taimina (2002) have carried out the only other studies along these lines of which I am aware. The first group of authors provides an exact solution using conformal mapping techniques to analyze an exponentially growing metric, while the second set of authors provides additional information on the mathematics of hyperbolic planes. Both studies are nicely complementary to the work presented here.

## II Buckling of Flowers

It would be very appealing if one could employ differential geometry alone to resolve questions about the buckling of sheets with non–flat metrics. I have not had success along these lines for the problem depicted in Fig. 1. However, if I digress briefly to discuss flowers rather than leaves, I can make some progress, and want to mention this result before passing on to the main topic of the paper.

Suppose that one adds an additional constraint to the problem, which is that when the sheet is embedded in three dimensions, it is required to be periodic along $`x`$, with period $`\mathrm{2}\pi R_{\mathrm{}}`$. One has a distorted cylinder, as shown in Figs. 2. One can use results from differential geometry to obtain a simple criterion for when such a structure loses its cylindrical symmetry and buckles. The Gauss–Bonnet theoremPogorelov (1956) applied to this case says that

$$𝑑s\kappa =𝑑AK,$$
(2)
where $`\kappa `$ is the geodesic curvature, and $`K`$ is the Gaussian curvature. The first integral is a line integral taken around the edge of the cylinder, while the second is a surface integral.

Use $`x`$ and $`y`$ to refer to material coordinates. For a metric where only $`g_{xx}(y)`$ differs from the value expected in flat space, the Gauss–Codazzi relationsPogorelov (1956) give

$$K=\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\sqrt{g_{xx}}}\frac{^\mathrm{2}\sqrt{g_{xx}}}{y^\mathrm{2}}.$$
(3)
Suppose that after embedding the sheet retains cylindrical symmetry. Then along the outer rim of the flower, $`\kappa `$ is constant. One can place a bound on $`\kappa `$. It cannot be greater in absolute value than $`\mathrm{1}/R`$, where $`R`$ is the radius of curvature at the rim, and it obtains this value only when the edge of the cylinder has splayed out so that the whole outer boundary shares a single tangent plane containing the boundary. Thus the left hand side of Eq. 2 obeys

$$\mathrm{2}\pi 𝑑s\kappa =\mathrm{2}\pi R\kappa \mathrm{2}\pi $$
(4)
Turning now to the right hand side of Eq. 2, one can perform the integral in cylindrical coordinates. At any point indexed by $`y`$, the radius of the cylinder is $`R_{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{g_{xx}}`$, where $`R_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the radius of curvature at the undistorted end of the flower. Along the $`y`$ direction, since $`g_{yy}=\mathrm{1}`$, distances along the sheet are unchanged by introduction of the metric, and one can write the integral over the Gaussian curvature as

$`{\displaystyle 𝑑AK}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Gamma }^L}𝑑y{\displaystyle 𝑑\theta R_{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{g_{xx}(y)}\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\sqrt{g_{xx}}}\frac{^\mathrm{2}\sqrt{g_{xx}}}{y^\mathrm{2}}}`$ (5)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{2}\pi R_{\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{g_{xx}}}{y}}|_\mathrm{\Gamma }^L`$ (6)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{2}\pi R_{\mathrm{}}{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{g_{xx}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{y}}`$ (7)
Returning to Eq. 2, one has the following condition:

$$|R_{\mathrm{}}\frac{\sqrt{g_{xx}(\mathrm{\Gamma })}}{y}|\mathrm{1}.$$
(8)
For metrics with slopes less than this value, it is possible for a cylindrical sheet to maintain cylindrical symmetry, but when the gradient of the metric becomes too steep, a cylindrical sheet must begin to buckle.

Fig. 2(a) shows such a sheet at the point where the metric has been chosen to make the inequality in Eq. 8 into an equality, and the edges of the cylinder are splayed out as far as they can go without buckling. Fig. 2(b) provides an example of a buckled cylinder, and the result suggests that the number of ripples at the edge of a cylinder might be given roughly by the quantity on the left hand side of Eq. 8. I have not pursued this idea further.

## III Energy of a Thin Sheet

I will now proceed to consider leaves, which is to say rectangular strips of stretched material. I will present some particular cases where the shapes of rectangular strips with non–flat metrics can be determined, even including very special cases where the shape is described in terms of elementary functions. To begin, I will establish in general the energy of a thin sheet with a metric that is not flat.

The energy of a thin sheet is conventionally given by the Föppl–von Kármán equations, and is the sum of two terms, one involving bending of the sheet and the other involving stretchingLandau and Lifshitz (1986); Mansfield (1964). This starting point is inconvenient for three reasons. First, many formulations employ coordinate systems that are not general enough to encompass the folds and overhangs that occur in this problem. Second, I will deal with sheets that have permanently been stretched, and the equations must be generalized to encompass the deformation. Finally, I need to move easily back and forth between numerical and analytical approaches, and the numerical discretization of the conventional equations is not simple.

I avoid all these problems by starting with a physical model of a sheet based upon a discrete collection of interacting points. I derive the continuum theory from the discrete model rather than by discretizing continuum equations. Similar numerical techniques have been employed frequently in studies of crumpled paper and tethered membranesLobkovsky and Witten (1997); Seung and Nelson (1988).

Let $`\stackrel{}{u}_i`$ be a collection of mass points that interact with neighbors, and at rest form a thin flat sheet. Let $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{ij}`$ be equilibrium vector displacements between neighbors $`i`$ and $`j`$. When the neighbors are not in equilibrium, the distance between them is $`u_{ij}=|\stackrel{}{u}_j\stackrel{}{u}_i|`$. Take the energy corresponding to locations of the mass points to be

$$=\frac{𝒦}{\mathrm{2}a}\underset{ij}{}[u_{ij}^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^\mathrm{2}]^\mathrm{2},$$
(9)
where $`𝒦`$ has dimensions of energy per volume, $`a`$ has dimensions of length, and the sum is over pairs of neighbors.

With Eq. 9 as a starting point, it is extremely easy to see how to modify equations of elasticity to incorporate a new metric. Write

$$=\frac{𝒦}{\mathrm{2}a}\underset{ij}{}[u_{ij}^\mathrm{2}\underset{\alpha \beta }{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^\alpha g_{\alpha \beta }\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^\beta ]^\mathrm{2},$$
(10)
where $`g_{\alpha \beta }`$ is the metric tensor describing deformations of the sheet. All that has happened, in short, is that the equilibrium distance between material points has changed. My hypothesis is that by specifying different metric tensors $`g`$, often ones with very simple functional forms, one can describe all the buckling cascades we have observed in the laboratory. In particular, since the plastic sheets are torn uniformly in the $`x`$ direction, I will assume that the metrics $`g`$ are constant in the $`x`$ direction, and vary only along $`y`$. Often I will take $`g`$ to be diagonal, with $`g_{xx}(y)`$ a smoothly varying function and $`g_{yy}=\mathrm{1}`$.

## IV Continuum Limit

The long–wavelength deformations of the points $`\stackrel{}{u}_i`$ correspond to elastic deformations of a continuous sheet. To form this correspondence, make the replacement

$$\stackrel{}{u}_j\stackrel{}{u}(\stackrel{}{r}_i)+(\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }}_{ij}\stackrel{}{})\stackrel{}{u}(\stackrel{}{r}_i),$$
(11)
where $`\stackrel{}{r}_i`$ is the location of $`\stackrel{}{u}_i`$ in an equilibrium of Eq. 9. Define the strain tensor

$$ϵ_{\alpha \beta }\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{2}}\left[\underset{\gamma }{}\frac{u^\gamma }{r_\alpha }\frac{u^\gamma }{r_\beta }g_{\alpha \beta }\right].$$
(12)
This definition reduces to the strain tensor of linear elasticity for small deformations and flat metrics, and generalizes it appropriately when deformations are large and the metric tensor $`g`$ differs from the identity. In terms of the strain tensor, $``$ can be rewritten as

$$=\frac{𝒦}{a}\underset{i}{}\underset{j\text{ nbr. of }i}{}\left[\underset{\alpha \beta }{}\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^\alpha ϵ_{\alpha \beta }(\stackrel{}{r}_i)\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}^\beta \right]^\mathrm{2}.$$
(13)
One has to specify a particular lattice in order to proceed further. If one takes the points $`\stackrel{}{u}_i`$ to sit on two two–dimensional triangular lattices, stacked over one another as in the first stage of forming an hcp lattice of lattice constant $`a`$, the the energy takes the particular form

$$=\frac{𝒦a^\mathrm{3}}{\mathrm{2}\mathrm{4}}\underset{i}{}\left[\begin{array}{cc}& \mathrm{1}\mathrm{9}[ϵ_{xx}+ϵ_{yy}]^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{3}\mathrm{8}[ϵ_{xx}^\mathrm{2}+ϵ_{yy}^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{2}ϵ_{xy}^\mathrm{2}]\hfill \\ +\hfill & \mathrm{3}\mathrm{2}ϵ_{zz}^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{1}\mathrm{6}[ϵ_{yy}+ϵ_{xx}]ϵ_{zz}\hfill \\ +\hfill & \mathrm{3}\mathrm{2}[ϵ_{yz}^\mathrm{2}+ϵ_{xz}^\mathrm{2}]+\mathrm{8}\sqrt{\mathrm{2}}[ϵ_{yz}(ϵ_{yy}ϵ_{xx})+\mathrm{2}ϵ_{xy}ϵ_{xz}]\hfill \end{array}\right]$$
(14)
I will employ this continuum functional later to develop analytical criteria for membrane shapes. Not all terms in it are equally important. However, before arriving at specific deformations to insert into this functional, it is difficult to tell which terms are large and which are small. I therefore begin with a geometrical description of wrinkled sheets, and then return to the question of which shapes minimize energy.

## V Solvable Problem at Edge of Strip

The full problem at hand is find the minimum energy state of Eq. 10 or Eq. 14 for a very long strip of finite width and very small thickness $`t`$, subject to a metric $`g_{xx}(y)`$ where $`g_{xx}`$ has some value $`g_\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ at $`y=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (left hand side of lower panel in Figure 1), and decreases monotonically toward $`\mathrm{1}`$ as $`y`$ approaches the other side of the strip (right hand side of lower panel in Figure 1). It seems very unlikely that this problem has in general an exact analytical solution. It is not even clear at the outset whether minimum energy states inserted into the functional Eq. 14 should produce the energies proportional to $`t`$ that would be characteristic of stretching, or energies proportional to $`t^\mathrm{3}`$ that would be characteristic of bending.

Therefore, it is useful to find cases where the problem can be solved exactly. The motivation for the solvable problem comes by looking at the lower panel in Figure 1. Imagine making a new infinitely long strip by slicing off the material a short distance $`w`$ from the left hand side. If $`w`$ is small enough, then the metric $`g_{xx}`$ within it should have the form of constant $`g_\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ plus a term linear in $`y`$. If the original length of this strip along the $`x`$ direction was $`L`$, now its arc length is $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}L`$. However, in order to be able to join onto the rest of the strip on the right hand side, its total extension in the $`x`$ direction must remain $`L`$.

Therefore, I study a thin strip whose metric is

$$\sqrt{g_{xx}(y)}=\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}(\mathrm{1}y/R);g_{yy}=\mathrm{1}$$
(15)
where $`R`$ is a constant. I look for solutions subject $`\stackrel{}{u}(x,y,z)`$ subject to the constraint that there be some period $`\lambda `$ for which

$$\stackrel{}{u}(x+\lambda ,y,z)=\widehat{x}\lambda +\stackrel{}{u}(x,y,z).$$
(16)
To obtain the benefits of symmetry, also take

$$y[w/\mathrm{2},w/\mathrm{2}]$$
(17)
so that the center line of the strip is at $`y=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$, rather than one edge.

If a long strip of material is given metric Eq. 15 and no constraint is applied, then the minimum energy configuration is easy to find. The material can relax completely by forming a ring of radius $`R`$, which curls round and round in a circle. Thus one can obtain some intuition about the problem by cutting out the paper figure in Figure 3 and pulling the ends apart horizontally. Let $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}(\theta )`$ and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}(\theta )`$ be two unit vectors attached to the circular strip, where $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ points around the circumference, and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ points along the radius. Then a class of low–energy deformations of the paper strip is produced by introducing some bend at every angle $`\theta `$ that rotates only around the current direction of $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$. Denote by $`\omega (\theta )`$ the rate at which the strip rotates around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ as a function of the angle $`\theta `$. In a laboratory frame the directions of the unit vectors are determined by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}+\omega (\theta )\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ (18a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ (18b)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ (18c)
It is easy to check that $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$, $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$, and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ remain orthonormal unit vectors under the dynamics described by Eqs. 18. This simple observation leads to the first important conclusion, which is that the constraint in Eq. 16 and the metric in Eq. 15 are incompatible if the strip undergoes bending alone. To show why, relate coordinate $`x`$ and angle $`\theta `$ through

$$\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}x=R\theta $$
(19)
and note that the location of the center line of the strip is given by

$$\stackrel{}{u}(x,\mathrm{\Gamma },\mathrm{\Gamma })\stackrel{}{l}(\theta )R^\theta 𝑑\theta ^{}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}(\theta ^{}).$$
(20)
However, because of Eq. 18b, one can also write

$$\stackrel{}{l}(\theta )=R\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}(\theta ).$$
(21)
Since $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ is a unit vector, $`\stackrel{}{l}`$ cannot move more than distance $`\mathrm{2}R`$ from its starting point. Therefore it is impossible to satisfy the constraint in Eq. 16 when the only bending permitted is around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$.

## VI Solution with Constant Bending

Despite the fact that bending about $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ alone cannot solve the physical problem at hand, there is a solution of Eqs. 18 needed for further mathematical development. This solution is found when $`\omega `$ is constant. The equations are not obviously solvable even in this simple case, since they are nonlinear, but the solution can be expressed in terms of elementary functions. Let

$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ $`=`$ $`\text{Re}[{\displaystyle \frac{i\stackrel{}{B}e^{i\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}}]`$ (22a)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{A}+\text{Re}[\stackrel{}{B}e^{i\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}],`$ (22b)
where $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ is real but $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ is complex. With this choice of $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$, one immediately satisfies 18b. In order for $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ to be a unit vector,

$$\stackrel{}{B}\stackrel{}{B}=\mathrm{\Gamma }\text{and}\stackrel{}{B}\stackrel{}{B}^{}=\mathrm{2}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}.$$
(23)
Now substitute Eqs. 22 into Eqs. 18c and 18a. They are satisfied if

$$\text{Re}[\frac{B}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}}e^{i\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}]=\frac{i\omega }{\mathrm{4}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}\left[e^{i\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}\stackrel{}{B}\times A\text{c.c.}+\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{B}\times \stackrel{}{B}^{}\right]+\stackrel{}{A}+\text{Re}[Be^{i\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}].$$
(24)
Matching up coefficients of different powers of $`\mathrm{exp}[i\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }]`$ gives

$`\stackrel{}{A}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\omega }{\mathrm{2}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\stackrel{}{B}\times \stackrel{}{B}^{}`$ (25a)
$`\stackrel{}{B}(\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{1})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i\omega }{\mathrm{2}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }}}\stackrel{}{B}\times \stackrel{}{A}.`$ (25b)
Substituting Eq. 25a into Eq. 25b and using Eq. 23 gives

$$\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}=\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\omega ^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{1}}.$$
(26)
Choosing any $`\stackrel{}{B}`$ that satisfies Eq. 23, one therefore has a solution, where $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ is determined by Eq. 25a. In particular, when $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}(\mathrm{\Gamma })=\widehat{y}`$, one has explicitly

$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })\widehat{x}+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{sin}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })\widehat{y}+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\omega \mathrm{sin}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })\widehat{z}`$ (27a)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{sin}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })\widehat{x}+(\mathrm{1}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}(\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })))\widehat{y}\omega \theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}(\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }))\widehat{z}`$ (27b)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }\omega \mathrm{sin}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })\widehat{x}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\omega [\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })]\widehat{y}+(\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}+[\mathrm{1}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}]\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }))\widehat{z}.`$ (27c)
and

$`l^x`$ $`=`$ $`R\mathrm{sin}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma })\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (28a)
$`l^y`$ $`=`$ $`R(\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }))\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}`$ (28b)
$`l^z`$ $`=`$ $`R\omega (\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\theta /\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }))\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}`$ (28c)
## VII Solution with Constant Bending and Torsion

Since bending around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ is not a general enough deformation of the strip to satisfy constraint Eq. 16, one must proceed next to consider torsion; that is, bends around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$. Let $`\dot{\varphi }`$ describe the rate at which twisting around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ occurs, and let $`\dot{\psi }`$ describe the rate at which twisting around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ occurs. A first case allowing exact solution is when $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$ are constant. Then Eqs. 18 become

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi }\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}+\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ (29a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\psi }\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}.`$ (29b)
Define

$`\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}\\ \widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}\end{array}\right)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{1}}{\omega }}\left(\begin{array}{cc}\dot{\varphi }& \dot{\psi }\\ \dot{\psi }& \dot{\varphi }\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\\ \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}\end{array}\right)`$ (30)
where

$`\omega =\sqrt{\dot{\varphi }^\mathrm{2}+\dot{\psi }^\mathrm{2}}`$ (31)
Rewriting Eqs. 29 in terms of these new variables, they become

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}+\omega \widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}`$ (32a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}.`$ (32b)
Eqs. 18 and Eqs. 32 are identical, except that the latter involve $`s`$ instead of $`r`$. Therefore, choosing a coordinate system where $`\widehat{x}^{}`$ points along $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ and $`\widehat{y}^{}`$ points along $`s_\mathrm{2}(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$, the $`\widehat{x}^{}`$, $`\widehat{y}^{}`$ and $`\widehat{z}^{}`$ coordinates of $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}`$ and $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}`$ are given once again by Eqs. 27.

## VIII Solution with Oscillating Bending and Torsion

This solution still does not solve the physical problem at hand, because the strip twists endlessly around the original $`\widehat{x}`$ axis. In order to avoid twisting the strip, the torsion $`\dot{\psi }`$ must oscillate between positive and negative values. A solution of this type can be found by taking

$`\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`\omega \mathrm{cos}\alpha \theta `$ (33a)
$`\dot{\psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\omega \mathrm{sin}\alpha \theta `$ (33b)
Now the equations describing rotations of the strip unit vectors are nonlinear and have non–constant coefficients. However, they can still be solved. Once again, define a new coordinate system with Eq. 30. Substituting Eqs. 33b into Eqs. 18 gives now

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}(\mathrm{1}+\alpha )+\omega \widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}`$ (34a)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}}{\theta }}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}(\mathrm{1}+\alpha ).`$ (34b)
Defining

$$\theta ^{}=(\mathrm{1}+\alpha )\theta ,\omega ^{}=\omega /(\mathrm{1}+\alpha )\text{and}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}=\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{1}+\omega _{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}}$$
(35)
one again recovers Eqs. 18, and its solution Eqs. 27 in terms of primed variables. That is,

$`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{1}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})\widehat{x}+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\mathrm{sin}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})\widehat{y}+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\omega ^{}\mathrm{sin}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})\widehat{z}`$ (36a)
$`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{2}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\mathrm{sin}({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}})\widehat{x}+(\mathrm{1}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}(\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}})))\widehat{y}\omega ^{}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}(\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}}))\widehat{z}`$ (36b)
$`\widehat{s}_\mathrm{3}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\omega ^{}\mathrm{sin}({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}})\widehat{x}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}\omega ^{}[\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}})]\widehat{y}+(\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}+[\mathrm{1}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}]\mathrm{cos}({\displaystyle \frac{\theta ^{}}{\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}}}))\widehat{z}.`$ (36c)
Finally the solutions can correspond to the shapes at the edge of wrinkled sheets. To see when they are physically acceptable, one has to invert all the linear transforms and write the expression for $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ explicitly. It is

$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^x`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha \theta \mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \theta \mathrm{sin}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})`$ (37a)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^y`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \theta \mathrm{sin}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})\mathrm{sin}\alpha \theta (\mathrm{1}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}(\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}))`$ (37b)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^z`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\omega ^{}\mathrm{cos}\alpha \theta \mathrm{sin}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})+\omega ^{}\theta _{\mathrm{\Gamma }}^{}{}_{}{}^{\mathrm{2}}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \theta (\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}))`$ (37c)
To satisfy the constraint Eq. 16, when one integrates $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ to get $`\stackrel{}{l}`$, the $`x`$ component must increase indefinitely, while the $`y`$ and $`z`$ components must oscillate. The solution acts this way if and only if

$$\alpha \theta =\pm \theta ^{}/\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}$$
(38)
The two signs in Eq. 38 produce identical solutions, as Eq. 37 is invariant under $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$. Adopting the minus sign, one has

$`\alpha `$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{1}+\omega ^\mathrm{2})/\mathrm{2}`$ (39)
$`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{1}\omega ^\mathrm{2}}{\mathrm{1}+\omega ^\mathrm{2}}}`$ (40)
The vectors $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\mathrm{}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ are

$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^x`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}^\mathrm{2}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{sin}^\mathrm{2}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ (41a)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^y`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\right]\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )`$ (41b)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^z`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\left[\mathrm{1}\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\right]\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\right)\omega ^{}`$ (41c)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^x`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}+\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )`$ (41d)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^y`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\mathrm{cos}^\mathrm{2}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\right]\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{sin}^\mathrm{2}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}+\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )`$ (41e)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^z`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\left[\mathrm{cos}^\mathrm{2}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\right]\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{sin}^\mathrm{2}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\right)\omega ^{}`$ (41f)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}^x`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{sin}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\omega ^{}`$ (41g)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}^y`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\mathrm{1})\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\omega ^{}`$ (41h)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}^z`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{cos}(\alpha \theta )+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}`$ (41i)
The wavelength of the pattern is given by the angle through which $`\theta `$ travels so that the smallest nonzero Fourier component of the pattern goes through one period, meaning that $`\theta `$ travels through $`\mathrm{2}\pi /\alpha `$. One now finds that the wavelength of the pattern $`\lambda =l(\mathrm{2}\pi /\alpha )`$ is

$$\lambda =\frac{\mathrm{2}\pi }{|\alpha |}R(\mathrm{1}\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})/\mathrm{2}=\frac{\mathrm{4}\pi R\omega ^\mathrm{2}}{(\mathrm{1}+\omega ^\mathrm{2})^\mathrm{2}}.$$
(42)
Since the strip travels an arclength $`\mathrm{2}\pi R/\alpha `$ when $`\theta `$ goes through $`\mathrm{2}\pi /\alpha `$, one can find $`L/\lambda \sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$:

$$\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}=\mathrm{1}+\mathrm{1}/\omega ^\mathrm{2}\omega =\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\sqrt{\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{1}}}.$$
(43)
Furthermore, using Eq. 15, one can determine the wavelength $`\lambda `$ from

$$\frac{\mathrm{2}\pi }{\lambda }=\frac{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}{\mathrm{2}R(\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{1})}=\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{4}(\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{1})}\left|\frac{g_{xx}}{y}\right|_{y=\mathrm{\Gamma }}.$$
(44)
Since $`\omega `$ and $`R`$, or equivalently $`\lambda `$, are the only parameters describing the solution, it has been determined completely by $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ and the slope of the metric. In particular, the wavelength of the pattern has been determined.

The functional forms of bending and torsion angles in Eq. 33b were simply pulled out of a hat. One must wonder whether in fact the resulting shapes minimize the energy functional in Eq. 10 with which the problem began. This question will be studied in later sections, and the answer is “sometimes.” That is, there can exist energy functionals and boundary conditions for which these solutions are energy minimizers. However, for the particular functional in Eq. 14, the solutions found in this section are excellent approximations but never exact energy minimizers. Furthermore, even for those functionals whose energy they can minimize, they do so only for a restricted subset of boundary conditions one can naturally apply to a strip. Returning to the paper strip in Fig. 3, the solution described by Eq. 41 is only legitimate when the two ends of the strip are placed at a particular distance as specified in the caption. However, if one holds the strip in ones hands, it is easy to slide its ends horizontally back and forth. The energy–minimizing shapes resulting from this process certainly exist, but happen not to be in the analytical family following from Eq. 33b. Finally, one can ask what happens if one takes a strip of length $`LR`$ and allows it to curl up into an energy–minimizing shape. Will it ever adopt a periodic structure with the period given exactly by Eq. 44? The answer to this question is probably “No,” but it has not yet fully been settled

Some images of solutions from Eq. 41 appear in Fig. 4. The radius $`R`$ is adjusted in each case so that the wavelength $`\lambda `$ remains constant. Drawing a number of such pictures, one finds that there is an upper limit of $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}\mathrm{5}.\mathrm{6}\mathrm{1}`$ for solutions of this type. When $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ is larger than this value, the solution collides with itself in the center of the wave and becomes self–intersecting.

## IX Implications for Energy Functional

Assuming that displacements are of the form given in Eq. 37, it is possible to return to the functional Eq. 14 and decide which terms dominate the energy of a stretched sheet. From the customary theory of thin sheets one expects the energy to come from the sum of two terms. The first term is the stretching energy of the sheet, and is of order $`t`$, where $`t`$ is the thickness of the sheet; in Eq. 14, the stretching energy would arise from the terms on the top of the right hand side that involve no derivatives with respect to $`z`$. The second term is the bending energy of the sheet, and it is proportional to $`t^\mathrm{3}`$.

This expectation is correct. Bending and stretching energies dominate the energy functional. Which of them dominates is a subtle matter. The stretching energy is proportional to the thickness of the sheet $`t`$ while the bending energy is proportional to the thickness of the sheet cubed, $`t^\mathrm{3}`$. In the limit of thin sheets, one would think that the stretching energy would be dominant. However, matters are not that simple, because the energy is proportional to the width of the strip $`w`$ to the fifth power, $`w^\mathrm{5}`$. The limit I believe is most interesting in practice is

$$\left(\frac{w}{R}\right)^\mathrm{2}\frac{t}{R}\frac{w}{R}.$$
(45)
In this limit the bending energy proportional to $`t^\mathrm{2}/R^\mathrm{2}`$ dominates the energy, while the stretching energy, proportional to $`w^\mathrm{4}/R^\mathrm{4}`$, can be neglected.

To obtain the energy formally, take $`\stackrel{}{u}`$ in the form

$`\stackrel{}{u}(x,y,z)`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{l}(\theta )+\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}y+\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}z`$ (46)
$`+`$ $`\left[q_{zz}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}z^\mathrm{2}+q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}zy+q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}y^\mathrm{2}\right]\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}/R`$ (47)
$`+`$ $`\left[q_{zz}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}z^\mathrm{2}+q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}zy+q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}y^\mathrm{2}\right]\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}/R`$ (48)
$`+`$ $`\left[q_{zz}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}z^\mathrm{2}+q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}zy+q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}y^\mathrm{2}\right]\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}/R`$ (49)
with $`\theta `$ related to $`x`$ by Eq. 19.

If all the coefficients $`q`$ were zero, one would have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{u}}{x}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{\theta }}\left[\stackrel{}{l}(\theta )+\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}y+\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}z\right]`$ (50a)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}[\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}+{\displaystyle \frac{y}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}}{\theta }}+{\displaystyle \frac{z}{R}}{\displaystyle \frac{\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}}{\theta }}]`$ (50b)
$`=`$ $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}[\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}(\mathrm{1}{\displaystyle \frac{y}{R}}\dot{\varphi }{\displaystyle \frac{z}{R}}){\displaystyle \frac{z}{R}}\dot{\psi }\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}+{\displaystyle \frac{y}{R}}\dot{\psi }\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}]`$ (50c)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{u}}{y}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ (50d)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{u}}{z}}`$ $`=`$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}.`$ (50e)
However, the functions $`q`$ are needed to allow small contractions of the membrane so as to minimize its energy. The minimizations are performed in the following way: first find the term in Eq. 14 proportional to $`y^\mathrm{2}/R^\mathrm{2}`$. This term can be made to vanish through a unique choice of $`q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}`$, $`q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}`$, $`q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}`$, $`q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}`$ ,and $`q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}`$, where $`q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}=\dot{\psi }`$, $`q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}=\mathrm{2}q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}`$, and the others vanish. The next term to consider is the term proportional to $`z^\mathrm{2}/R^\mathrm{2}`$, as this is larger than the term proportional to $`y^\mathrm{4}/R^\mathrm{4}`$. Minimizing the term proportional to $`z^\mathrm{2}`$ determines the following values for the variables $`q`$:

$`q_{zz}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\mathrm{2}}\dot{\psi }/\mathrm{4},q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}=\dot{\psi },q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{1}\right)}=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (51a)
$`q_{zz}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\mathrm{2}}\dot{\varphi }/\mathrm{6},q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}=\dot{\varphi }/\mathrm{3},q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{2}\right)}=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (51b)
$`q_{zz}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi }/\mathrm{1}\mathrm{2},q_{zy}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}=\mathrm{\Gamma },q_{yy}^{\left(\mathrm{3}\right)}=\dot{\varphi }/\mathrm{6}.`$ (51c)
Inserting the expressions for $`ϵ_{\alpha \beta }`$ into Eq. 10, one has the following results. Since there are are only two layers in the $`z`$ direction, carry out that sum explicitly, but convert sums in the $`x`$ and $`y`$ direction to integrals, using the fact that the area per particle is $`\sqrt{\mathrm{3}/\mathrm{4}}a^\mathrm{2}`$. The leading term proportional to the sheet thickness is of the form

$$𝒦\frac{aLw^\mathrm{5}}{R^\mathrm{4}}\frac{\mathrm{1}}{L}_\mathrm{\Gamma }^L𝑑x[\text{many terms!}]$$
(52)
but the term that dominates the energy when inequalities Eq. 45 hold is

$$𝒦\frac{at^\mathrm{2}Lw}{R^\mathrm{2}}\frac{\mathrm{1}}{L}_\mathrm{\Gamma }^L𝑑x\frac{\left(\mathrm{3}g_\mathrm{\Gamma }\dot{\psi }^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{2}g_\mathrm{\Gamma }^\mathrm{2}\dot{\varphi }^\mathrm{2}\right)}{\sqrt{\mathrm{3}}}.$$
(53)
When Eq. 53 dominates the energy, the strip is wide enough so that $`wt`$, but not so wide that it is favorable to begin buckling or forming fine structure in the $`y`$ direction.

The various powers of $`g_\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ appearing in Eq. 53 arise because the microscopic lattice underlying the calculation has been stretched, and its elastic properties made anisotropic by the new metric. The calculations are producing a specific description for how stretching material in the $`x`$ direction by a factor of $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ changes its elastic properties. This description is unlikely to apply to the polymeric materials in which most experiments are conducted. For this reason, direct numerical studies of the bending of strips have been carried out in such a way that $`g_\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in Eq. 53 should be set to 1. Rather than starting with a strip of length $`L=\lambda `$, stretching it to length $`\lambda \sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$, and then introducing a gradient in the metric along $`y`$, the numerical studies start with a strip of length $`L`$, introduce a linear gradient of slope $`\mathrm{1}/R`$ in the metric along $`y`$, and then constrain the ends of the strip to sit at distance $`\lambda =L/\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$. That is, the constraint at the ends of the strip instead of Eq. 16 is

$$\stackrel{}{u}(x+L,y,z)=\widehat{x}\lambda +\stackrel{}{u}(x,y,z).$$
(54)
The energy of a strip prepared in this way is

$$𝒦\frac{at^\mathrm{2}Lw}{R^\mathrm{2}}\frac{\mathrm{1}}{L}_\mathrm{\Gamma }^L𝑑x\frac{\left(\mathrm{3}\dot{\psi }^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{2}\dot{\varphi }^\mathrm{2}\right)}{\sqrt{\mathrm{3}}}.$$
(55)
## X Euler–Lagrange Equations for Minimum of Elastic Energy

The solution of Eq. 37 was obtained by assuming that $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$ have the forms given in Eq. 33b. These choices for the torsion and bending of the strip did make it possible to find a shape for the strip that was consistent with the constraint in Eq. 16, and with a few other physical considerations.

Varying $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$ away from the arbitrary forms obtained by guessing leads to additional solutions, generally of lower energy. Depending upon the precise form of the continuum energy functional, and the boundary conditions to which the problem is subjected, the solutions in Eq. 41 can turn out to be exact, and in many other cases are excellent approximations to exact solutions.

To look for energy–minimizing shapes, I will use Eq. 55 to express the energy of a strip, and will rewrite it as

$$=𝑑\theta \frac{C_\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{2}}\dot{\varphi }^\mathrm{2}+\frac{C_\mathrm{2}}{\mathrm{2}}\dot{\psi }^\mathrm{2}.$$
(56)
If $`C_\mathrm{1}`$ is equal to $`C_\mathrm{2}`$ then the analytic solution of Eq. 41 can minimize the energy for certain boundary conditions. According to Eq. 55, in fact the constants are in the ratio of 2 to 3, and since they are not equal, the solution is approximate, although for some boundary conditions the approximation is excellent.

In explaining the calculations leading to these conclusions, it is useful to derive the equations of motion Eq. 18 in a different way. Let $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}(\theta )\mathrm{}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}(\theta )`$ be orthonormal vectors that evolve as a function of $`\theta `$. Letting primes denote derivatives with respect to $`\theta `$, one has in general that

$$\widehat{r}_i^{}=\underset{j}{}(\widehat{r}_i^{}\widehat{r}_j)\widehat{r}_j$$
(57)
This equation of motion is subject to a number of constraints. First, each vector must retain unit magnitude. Therefore

$$|\widehat{r}_i|^\mathrm{2}=\mathrm{\Gamma }\widehat{r}_i^{}\widehat{r}_i=\mathrm{\Gamma }.$$
(58a)
Second, since the vectors are orthogonal, for $`ij`$
$$\widehat{r}_i\widehat{r}_j=\mathrm{\Gamma }.$$
(58b)
Third, the condition that $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ curl around one another because of the gradient of metric, but otherwise be rigid against twisting around $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ means that
$$\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}=\mathrm{1}\text{or}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}=\mathrm{1}.$$
(58c)
There are no constraints upon $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}`$ or $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}`$; define these functions to be

$`\dot{\varphi }`$ $``$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}`$ (59a)
$`\dot{\psi }`$ $``$ $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}.`$ (59b)
Then Eqs. 18 follow from Eq. 57 just by employing Eqs. 58c and 59.

Once vectors $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\mathrm{}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ are subject to the constraints in Eqs. 58c, the energy Eq. 56 can be rewritten, apart from an overall additive constant, as

$$=𝑑\theta \frac{C_\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{2}}|\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}|^\mathrm{2}+\frac{C_\mathrm{2}}{\mathrm{2}}|\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}|^\mathrm{2}$$
(60)
Imposing the final constraint

$$_\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\theta _f}𝑑\theta \widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}=\lambda \widehat{x},$$
(61)
one needs to extremize the functional

$$𝑑\theta \frac{C_\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{2}}|\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}|^\mathrm{2}+\frac{C_\mathrm{2}}{\mathrm{2}}|\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}|^\mathrm{2}+\stackrel{}{p}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}(\theta )\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{2}}u_\mathrm{1}(\theta )|\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^\mathrm{2}|u_\mathrm{2}(\theta )\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}\frac{\mathrm{1}}{\mathrm{2}}u_\mathrm{1}(\theta )|\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^\mathrm{2}|u_\mathrm{4}(\theta )\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}.$$
(62)
The constant vector $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ and the functions $`u_\mathrm{1}(\theta )\mathrm{}u_\mathrm{4}(\theta )`$ are Lagrange multipliers enforcing the constraints.

There may be some concern over the legitimacy of using equations of constraint in order to simplify the form of the energy functional before carrying out the variation. The results will not be reported here in detail, but the entire variational procedure has been repeated using $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{3}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{3}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}`$ as the definitions of $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$, and enforcing directly the constraints $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}=\dot{\varphi }\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}+\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}=\dot{\psi }\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}`$. The algebra is more involved than what is reported below, but the results are identical.

Taking the variation of the functional Eq. 62 with respect to $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ gives

$`C_\mathrm{1}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}^{\prime \prime }+\stackrel{}{p}u_\mathrm{1}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}u_\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}u_\mathrm{4}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (63a)
$`C_\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}^{\prime \prime }u_\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}u_\mathrm{3}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}+u_\mathrm{4}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}+u_\mathrm{4}^{}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}=\mathrm{\Gamma }.`$ (63b)
Now employing Eq. 18, one can rewrite Eqs. 63b as

$`C_\mathrm{1}[(\dot{\varphi }^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{1})\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}\dot{\varphi }\dot{\psi }\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}+[\dot{\varphi }^{}+\dot{\psi }]]+u_\mathrm{1}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}+u_\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}+u_\mathrm{4}[\dot{\psi }\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{3}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}]=\stackrel{}{p}`$ (64a)
$`C_\mathrm{2}[\dot{\varphi }\dot{\psi }\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}(\dot{\psi }^\mathrm{2}+\mathrm{1})\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}+(\dot{\psi }^{}\dot{\varphi })\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{3}]+u_\mathrm{2}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}+u_\mathrm{3}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}u_\mathrm{4}[\dot{\varphi }\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{3}+\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{2}]u_\mathrm{4}^{}\stackrel{}{r}_\mathrm{1}=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (64b)
One obtains six scalar equations by taking the dot product of Eqs. 64 with $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$, $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}`$ in turn, using the fact that they are orthonormal once all the Lagrange multipliers are chosen properly. The only time that $`u_\mathrm{1}`$ appears is when one takes the dot product of Eq. 64a with $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$, and similarly the only time that $`u_\mathrm{3}`$ appears is when one takes the dot product of Eq. 64b with $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$. Therefore, $`u_\mathrm{1}`$ and $`u_\mathrm{3}`$ can be taken to be whatever is needed to satisfy these two equations, which need not even be written down. The remaining four equations are

$`u_\mathrm{2}`$ $`=`$ $`C_\mathrm{2}\dot{\varphi }\dot{\psi }+u_\mathrm{4}^{}`$ (65a)
$`u_\mathrm{4}\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`C_\mathrm{2}[\dot{\psi }^{}\dot{\varphi }]`$ (65b)
$`u_\mathrm{2}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{p}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}+C_\mathrm{1}\dot{\varphi }\dot{\psi }`$ (65c)
$`u_\mathrm{4}\dot{\psi }`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{p}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}C_\mathrm{1}[\dot{\varphi }^{}+\dot{\psi }]`$ (65d)
Eliminating $`u_\mathrm{2}`$ allows one finally to write a complete set of Euler–Lagrange equations determinining minima of the energy:

$`u_\mathrm{4}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{}{p}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}+[C_\mathrm{1}C_\mathrm{2}]\dot{\varphi }\dot{\psi }`$ (66a)
$`\dot{\psi }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`u_\mathrm{4}\dot{\varphi }/C_\mathrm{2}+\dot{\varphi }`$ (66b)
$`\dot{\varphi }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\stackrel{}{p}(\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2})u_\mathrm{4}\dot{\psi }\right]/C_\mathrm{1}\dot{\psi }`$ (66c)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\varphi }(\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2})+\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ (66d)
$`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}^{}`$ $`=`$ $`\dot{\psi }(\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}\times \widehat{r}_\mathrm{2})\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}.`$ (66e)
Notice that all the terms in Eq. 41 have definite parity under $`\theta \theta `$. Assuming that all energy minima have the same symmetry, $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ must point along $`x`$, $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`u_\mathrm{4}`$ must be even, and $`\dot{\psi }`$ must be odd. The solutions of Eq. 66 are indexed by four constants, the initial values of $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`u_\mathrm{4}`$, and by $`p_x`$, and finally the angle $`\theta _f`$ to which the solutions are to be integrated.

To this point, the manipulations make use of Eq. 18, but do not use any features of the particular forms of $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$ chosen in Eq. 33b. Do $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$ chosen according to Eq. 33b solve Eqs. 66? Inserting these forms of $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`\dot{\psi }`$, one quickly finds that

$`u_\mathrm{4}`$ $`=`$ $`C_\mathrm{2}(\alpha \mathrm{1}),\text{and}u_\mathrm{4}^{}=\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (69)
$`(C_\mathrm{2}C_\mathrm{1})\omega ^\mathrm{2}\mathrm{sin}\alpha \theta \mathrm{cos}\alpha \theta =\stackrel{}{p}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$
$`(C_\mathrm{1}C_\mathrm{2})(\mathrm{1}\alpha )\omega \mathrm{sin}\alpha \theta =\stackrel{}{p}\widehat{r}_\mathrm{3}.`$
Turning to Eq. 41, one finds that $`\stackrel{}{p}`$ must point only in the $`\widehat{x}`$ direction and

$`(C_\mathrm{2}C_\mathrm{1})\omega ^\mathrm{2}`$ $`=`$ $`p_x(\mathrm{1}+\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{})`$ (70a)
$`(C_\mathrm{1}C_\mathrm{2})(\mathrm{1}\alpha )\omega `$ $`=`$ $`p_x\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}\omega ^{}.`$ (70b)
Using Eq. 38 to relate $`\theta _\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$, and Eq. 35, one finds

$$C_\mathrm{1}=C_\mathrm{2}$$
(71)
or

$$\alpha =\mathrm{1}+\omega ^\mathrm{2}.$$
(72)
Unfortunately, Eq. 72 contradicts Eq. 39. Therefore, the functional forms in Eq. 33b minimize the energy only if $`C_\mathrm{1}=C_\mathrm{2}`$, and otherwise do not.

## XI Numerical Solutions

The Euler–Lagrange equations in Eq. 66 constitute a closed set of equations that determine all energy minima. It is surprisingly tricky to employ them for this purpose, and I have only partial results to report. Searching for periodic solutions of Eqs. 66 proceeds in the following way: choose a value of $`p_x`$, and the initial values of $`u_\mathrm{4}(\theta )`$ and $`\dot{\varphi }(\theta )`$. Integrate forward in $`\theta `$ until reaching an angle $`\theta _f`$ at which $`\dot{\psi }(\theta _f)`$ vanishes. It will not in general be true that the solution at this point obeys Eq. 16, or that $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{1}`$ and $`\widehat{r}_\mathrm{2}`$ point along the $`\widehat{x}`$ and $`\widehat{y}`$ axes as they must. However, by adjusting $`p_x`$ alone, all of these boundary conditions can be achieved at once. One still has the two initial values $`\dot{\varphi }(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ and $`u_\mathrm{4}(\mathrm{\Gamma })`$ to vary. These allow one to vary $`\theta _f`$ and $`\lambda `$ independently.

I have used a shooting algorithm to find solutions along these lines. The process works, but is very delicate. Unless all constants are chosen very near to their final values, the solutions of the equations fly off into completely unphysical regions. The analytical solutions of Section VIII are indispensable for the purpose of locating good starting points for shooting solutions. Once a few solutions have been located, additional solutions can be obtained by using extrapolation to predict new values for initial conditions and searching in a narrow range of parameter values around the extrapolated predictions.

When $`C_\mathrm{1}=C_\mathrm{2}`$ in Eq. 56, the solution in Eq. 41 does indeed minimize the energy when the wavelength of the pattern is constrained to obey Eq. 44. However, even when $`C_\mathrm{1}=C_\mathrm{2}`$, the lowest–energy solution for a given $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$ is not given by demanding that the wavelength correspond to this analytically tractable value. For a given $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}=L/\lambda `$, energies per length around 25% lower are obtained by allowing $`\lambda `$ and $`L`$ to increase; the energy decreases monotonically as they become larger. The shooting procedure eventually becomes unable to track additional solutions, and it is not yet possible to say whether there are any energy minima to be found at particular wavelengths.

When $`C_\mathrm{1}=\mathrm{2}`$ and $`C_\mathrm{2}=\mathrm{3}`$ in Eq. 56, as it should for an isotropic two–dimensional material in accord with Eq. 55, the solution in Eq. 41 provides a good enough approximation to the true solution that the numerical routines are able to converge by using its properties as a starting point. The comments of the paragraph above otherwise do not need to be changed. As shown in Fig. 5, when boundary conditions corresponding to a solution obeying Eq. 44 are imposed upon the Euler–Lagrange equations, their solution is almost indistinguishable from Eqs. 41. However for the same value of $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}`$, the longer the value of the wavelength $`\lambda `$, the lower the energy. There is no indication of an energy minimum at a periodic solution. Fig. 6 compares the lowest–energy solution I have found for $`\sqrt{g_\mathrm{\Gamma }}=\mathrm{4}/\mathrm{3}`$ with the solution displayed previously in Fig. 5.

An alternate way to check whether periodic solutions are favorable is to carry out direct numerical minimization in large systems. Returning to the numerical setting of Fig. 5, I triple the length of the system, fix the boundaries at distance $`\mathrm{3}\lambda `$, leave all else as before, and minimize the energy Eq. 10. The strip develops a composite structure in which the long wavelength is 3 times the short wavelength, and with an energy that is somewhat less than 3 times the energy of the structure 1/3 as long, as shown in Fig. 7.

Thus it is possible that the lowest–energy state for the simple metric in Eq. 15 involves a cascade of oscillations on many scales, but the matter is not yet settled. Many other problems remain to be addressed, including the application of the ideas obtained here to the more complex metrics illustrated in Fig. 1.

###### Acknowledgements.

Eran Sharon discussed these problems with me for weeks, and spent months carrying out experiments, before I finally began to see there was something interesting to be done. Lorenzo Sadun helped us see what could be gained from differential geometry. Thanks to Ralf Stephan for pointing out Ref. Nechaev and Voituriez (2001). Financial support from the National Science Foundation (DMR-9877044 DMR-0101030) is gratefully acknowledged.