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The limit point of the pentagram map and infinitesimal monodromy. (English) Zbl 1486.52001

Summary: The pentagram map takes a planar polygon \(P\) to a polygon \(P'\) whose vertices are the intersection points of the consecutive shortest diagonals of \(P\). The orbit of a convex polygon under this map is a sequence of polygons that converges exponentially to a point. Furthermore, as recently proved by Glick, coordinates of that limit point can be computed as an eigenvector of a certain operator associated with the polygon. In the present paper, we show that Glick’s operator can be interpreted as the infinitesimal monodromy of the polygon. Namely, there exists a certain natural infinitesimal perturbation of a polygon, which is again a polygon but in general not closed; what Glick’s operator measures is the extent to which this perturbed polygon does not close up.

MSC:

52A10 Convex sets in \(2\) dimensions (including convex curves)
51M20 Polyhedra and polytopes; regular figures, division of spaces