On O’Hara knot energies I: Regularity for critical knots

Abstract

We develop a regularity theory for extremal knots of scale invariant knot energies defined by J. O’Hara in 1991. This class contains as a special case the Möbius energy.

For the Möbius energy, due to the celebrated work of Freedman, He, and Wang, we have a relatively good understanding. Their approach is crucially based on the invariance of the Möbius energy under Möbius transforms, which fails for all the other O’Hara energies.

We overcome this difficulty by re-interpreting the scale invariant O’Hara knot energies as a nonlinear, nonlocal $L^p$-energy acting on the unit tangent of the knot parametrization. This allows us to draw a connection to the theory of (fractional) harmonic maps into spheres. Using this connection we are able to adapt the regularity theory for degenerate fractional harmonic maps in the critical dimension to prove regularity for minimizers and critical knots of the scale-invariant O’Hara knot energies.