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# On the writhe of non-closed curves Preprint

## 1 Introduction

The term “writhe” (or “writhing number”) was first proposed by Fuller  for a quantity $`𝒲r`$ that arises as a difference between the linking number $`k`$ and the twist (or “twisting number”) $`𝒯w`$ of a closed ribbon in the Călugăreanu-White-Fuller formula

$$𝒲r=k𝒯w$$
(1)
The sense of this very simple-looking and very famous (isn’t the second a consequence of the first?) relationship is that the right-hand side, though defined for a ribbon, depends only on its central curve.

Since $`𝒲r`$ is a characteristic of spatial complexity of a curve, it makes this quantity worth to consider while examining lengthy physical objects. In particular, the values of $`𝒲r`$ have been computed in a number of works for various models of large-scale structure of DNAs (e.g., ) as well as for experimental data on these molecules . RNA tertiary structures and the protein folding are other neighbour areas for an application of the geometrical and topological tools developed in the DNA studies . However, the application of the writhe is confined formally by smoothly closed shapes though quite a lot of interesting objects have their ends not joined (or joined non-smoothly). One should mention here the studies based on the recently developed experimental techniques of manipulation with single DNA molecules . The modelling curves require an appropriately defined measure to characterize their arrangement in space. Therefore, it seems to be helpful to generalize the notion of the writhe onto non-closed curves and their fragments. Indeed, such trials (explicit and implicit) have been made . In some cases the definitions of the writhe suggested in different works are not consistent to each other.

The aim of this paper is to give a consistent and natural generalization of the notion of writhe to an arbitrary fragment of a curve and to derive explicit formulas for its computation as a function of the arclength. The basic idea consists in a construction of the closure of the fragment under consideration in such a way that it would correspond to the closure of the tangent indicatrix by an arc of a great circle, as it has been proposed by Maggs . In some sense, we can think then about the writhe as being locally defined (cf. ).

## 2 Notation and preliminaries

We start our consideration with a smooth non-self-intersecting curve $`A=𝐫(s):[0,L]^3`$ of class $`C^2`$, $`s`$ being the arclength. We assume that the segment has a natural orientation in the direction of the arc coordinate increase. In what follows, we shall denote a reverse-oriented segment by the minus sign: $`A`$. The concatenation of two segments $`A`$ and $`B`$ having, respectively, the common ending and starting point will be written as $`A+B`$.

A vector function $`𝐮(s):[0,L]𝐒^2\{z^3;|z|=1\}`$, $`𝐮C`$, may be chosen such that $`s`$, $`𝐮(s)𝐫^{}(s)=0,s`$;  denotes the derivative with respect to $`s`$. Let $`ϵ>0`$ be small enough so that the ribbon $`R_ϵ=\{𝐫+\mu 𝐮,ϵ\mu ϵ\}`$ does not cross itself.

### 2.1 The twist, the writhe and the linking number

The twisting number (or the twist) of the ribbon (i.e., of the pair $`(𝐫,𝐮))`$ is defined by

$$𝒯w(𝐫,𝐮)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}𝐫^{}\times 𝐮𝑑𝐮.$$

If $`𝐫C^3`$ and $`𝐫^{\prime \prime }0`$, then the twist of a ribbon may be decomposed into the twist of the Frenet frame plus the twist of the ribbon relative to the Frenet frame :

$$𝒯w(𝐫,𝐮)=𝒯w_F(𝐫)+\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}𝑑\varphi .$$
(2)
The angle $`\varphi =\varphi (s)`$ is an angle between $`𝐮`$ and the principal normal. By the Frenet ribbon is meant a special one defined by the principal normal vector to the curve. The Frenet ribbon is defined uniquely by the space curve $`𝐫(s)`$, if $`𝐫^{\prime \prime }0`$. The twist of the Frenet ribbon is

$$𝒯w_F(𝐫)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}\tau (s)𝑑s,$$
(3)
where $`\tau (s)`$ is the torsion of the curve $`𝐫(s)`$. Clearly, for planar curves, $`𝒯w_F=0`$.

Now consider the smoothly closed curve: $`𝐫(0)=𝐫(L),𝐫^{}(0)=𝐫^{}(L)`$. The quantity called the writhe may be expressed as the double integral

$$𝒲r_A=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}\frac{(𝐫(s_1)𝐫(s_2))(𝐭(s_1)\times 𝐭(s_2))}{|𝐫(s_1)𝐫(s_2)|^3}𝑑s_1𝑑s_2,$$
(4)
where $`𝐭=𝐫^{}(s)`$ is the tangent vector and $`s_1,s_2`$ are the arclengths. The right-hand side of Eq. (4) is the Gauß linking integral in the singular case as being over all distinct pairs of points on one curve. The writhe depends exclusively on the shape of the curve.

For two closed curves $`A`$ and $`B`$, $`AB=\mathrm{}`$, the Gauß linking integral gives an integer-valued topological invariant

$$k(A,B)=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{B}{}\underset{A}{}\frac{(𝐫_A(s_1)𝐫_B(s_2))(𝐭_A(s_1)\times 𝐭_B(s_2))}{|𝐫_A(s_1)𝐫_B(s_2)|^3}𝑑s_1𝑑s_2,$$
(5)
called the linking number.

### 2.2 The basic relations

Two theorems by Fuller  are valid. They provide the means to compute $`𝒲r`$ efficiently.

1. Let $`B=𝐫(s)C^3`$ be a closed oriented space curve with its tangent $`𝐫_B^{}(s)`$, $`s`$ the arclength. The tangent traces out a *closed* curve $`\stackrel{~}{B}(s)`$ on the unit sphere which is piecewise of class $`C^2`$. The curve $`\stackrel{~}{B}(s)`$ is divided into a finite family of non-self-intersecting closed piecewise $`C^2`$ space curves. Each curve of this family then encloses a domain $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$ defined so that the geodesic normal points into its interior. Let $`S_B`$ be the sum of the areas of these domains (the components are counted with multiplicity determined by how many times the corresponding domains are encircled by the curve). Then

$$𝒲r(𝐫)=\frac{S_B}{2\pi }1mod2.$$
(6)
2. Let $`𝐫_0(\theta )`$ and $`𝐫_1(\theta )`$ be two closed non-self-intersecting curves in $`^3`$ of class $`C^2`$, $`\theta [0,\mathrm{\Theta }]`$ being the common regular parameter. Let there exist a continuous deformation $`𝐅(\lambda ):(\theta ,\lambda )𝐫_\lambda (\theta )`$, $`\lambda [0,1]`$, such that

1. $`𝐅(0)=𝐫_0(\theta )`$ and $`𝐅(1)=𝐫_1(\theta )`$,
2. $`𝐫_\lambda (\theta )C^1`$ is a non-self-intersecting curve for all $`\lambda [0,1]`$,
3. the tangent $`𝐭_\lambda (\theta )`$ is continuous in $`\lambda `$,
4. $`|\mathrm{}(𝐭_0(\theta ),𝐭_\lambda (\theta ))|<\pi ,(\theta ,\lambda )[0,\mathrm{\Theta }]\times [0,1]`$.

Then the difference of the writhes of the two curves is

$$𝒲r(𝐫_1)𝒲r(𝐫_0)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{\Theta }}{}}\frac{𝐭_0(\theta )\times 𝐭_1(\theta )}{1+𝐭_0(\theta )𝐭_1(\theta )}\frac{d}{d\theta }\left(𝐭_0(\theta )+𝐭_1(\theta )\right)𝑑\theta .$$
(7)
We should stress that both theorems are applicable to *closed* curves. Nevertheless, the works occur (e.g., ) in which the writhe of a linear (non-closed) curve is computed by means of Eq. (7) that leads generally to improper results.

Let the ribbon $`(𝐫,𝐮)`$ be also closed: $`𝐮(0)=𝐮(L)`$. Denote by $`k(𝐫\mu 𝐮,𝐫+\mu 𝐮)k(𝐫,𝐮)`$ the linking number of the two boundary curves $`𝐫\mu 𝐮`$ and $`𝐫+\mu 𝐮`$. For $`ϵ`$ small enough, $`k(𝐫,𝐮)`$ does not depend on $`ϵ`$. This justifies omitting $`ϵ`$ in the following. In other words, we shall be dealing with arbitrarily narrow ribbons.

The famous Călugăreanu-White-Fuller theorem  claims that the difference of the linking and twisting numbers is the writhe:

$$k(𝐫,𝐮)𝒯w(𝐫,𝐮)=𝒲r(𝐫).$$

### 2.3 The Gauß integral over self-intersecting and non-smooth curves

We are going to show that the integral in Eq. (4 ) is well-defined also for curves that are smooth only piecewise. To demonstrate this, it is sufficient to consider a fragment of a curve in the vicinity of the point where the tangent vector is not continuous. If the double integral does not diverge in this point then, as a consequence, it also exists for curves crossing themselves in a finite number of points.

As a general case, we take the model of two curves (which may be thought of as two smooth fragments of the same curve) $`𝐫_1(s_1)`$ and $`𝐫_2(s_2)`$ that have one common point $`O:𝐫_1(0)=𝐫_2(0)`$; $`s_1`$ and $`s_2`$ are the arclengths, $`s_i[0,l_i],i=1,2`$. Generally, $`𝐭_1(0)𝐭_2(0)`$. Each of the two curves is of class $`C^3`$ and, near $`O`$, it may be locally described in its own Frenet frame $`(𝐭_{i0},𝐧_{i0},𝐛_{i0}),i=1,2`$, as

$$\text{r}_i(s_i)=(s_i\frac{\kappa _i^2}{6}s_i^3,\frac{\kappa _i}{2}s_i^2+\frac{\kappa _i^{}}{6}s_i^3,\frac{\kappa _i\tau _i}{6}s_i^3)+𝒪(s_i^4),i=1,2,$$
(8)
where $`\kappa _i`$ and $`\tau _i`$ are the curvature and torsion of the $`i`$-th curve in the point $`O`$. (If the point $`O`$ is an (isolated) inflection point, it is still possible to define the local frame as the limiting Frenet for $`s_i0+`$.) Differentiation of Eq. (8) yields

$$\text{t}_i(s_i)=(1\frac{\kappa _i^2}{2}s_i^2,\kappa _is_i+\frac{\kappa _i^{}}{2}s_i^2,\frac{\kappa _i\tau _i}{2}s_i^2)+𝒪(s_i^3),i=1,2.$$
(9)
Let $`A=\{a_{jk}\}`$ be an orthogonal matrix of orientation of the second Frenet frame with respect to the first one:

|  | $`𝐭_{20}`$ | $`𝐧_{20}`$ | $`𝐛_{20}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| $`𝐭_{10}`$ |  |  |  |
| $`𝐧_{10}`$ |  | $`a_{jk}`$ |  |
| $`𝐛_{10}`$ |  |  |  |

Then the integrand of the Gauß integral (Eq. (5))

$$I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)=\frac{(𝐫_1(s_1)𝐫_2(s_2))(𝐭_1(s_1)\times 𝐭_2(s_2))}{|𝐫_1(s_1)𝐫_2(s_2)|^3}$$

may be represented in the form

$`I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)={\displaystyle \frac{(\text{r}_1(s_1)A\text{r}_2(s_2))(\text{t}_1(s_1)\times A\text{t}_2(s_2))}{|\text{r}_1(s_1)A\text{r}_2(s_2)|^3}}=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{A\text{t}_2(\text{r}_1\times \text{t}_1)+\text{t}_1A(\text{r}_2\times \text{t}_2)}{|\text{r}_1A\text{r}_2|^3}}.`$
With the help of Eqs. (8), (9), it is possible to obtain an approximation for small $`s_1,s_2`$

$`I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)=\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(a_{31}\kappa _1s_1^2+a_{13}\kappa _2s_2^2)+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{3}}[(a_{31}\kappa _1^{}a_{21}\kappa _1\tau _1)s_1^3+(a_{13}\kappa _2^{}a_{12}\kappa _2\tau _2)s_2^3]+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\kappa _1\kappa _2(a_{32}s_1+a_{23}s_2)s_1s_2+𝒪_4\}\times `$
$`\times [s_1^22a_{11}s_1s_2+s_2^2(a_{21}\kappa _1s_1+a_{12}\kappa _2s_2)s_1s_2+𝒪_4]^{\frac{3}{2}},`$ (10)
where the terms of the 4-th order and higher are denoted by

$$𝒪_4=\underset{l=0}{\overset{4}{}}𝒪(s_1^ls_2^{4l})$$

.

Consider first the case when $`a_{11}^21`$. It is convenient to introduce the new variables $`\rho ,\varphi `$ ($`\rho 0`$, $`\varphi [0,\frac{\pi }{2}]`$) such that

$`s_1={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}}\rho (\sqrt{1a_{11}}\mathrm{cos}\varphi +\sqrt{1+a_{11}}\mathrm{sin}\varphi ),`$
$`s_2={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{2}}\rho (\sqrt{1+a_{11}}\mathrm{sin}\varphi \sqrt{1a_{11}}\mathrm{cos}\varphi ).`$
Then, with the use of Eq. (10), we have

$`{\displaystyle I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)𝑑s_1𝑑s_2}={\displaystyle \widehat{I}_{𝒲r}(\rho ,\varphi )\sqrt{1a_{11}^2}\rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑\varphi }=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{1a_{11}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Phi }_0(\varphi )\rho ^3+\mathrm{\Phi }_1(\varphi )\rho ^4+𝒪(\rho ^5)}{\rho ^3[1+\mathrm{\Psi }_1(\varphi )\rho +𝒪(\rho ^2)]^{\frac{3}{2}}}𝑑\rho 𝑑\varphi }.`$
As $`\rho 0`$, the integrand of the last integral approaches

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_0(\varphi )=\frac{1}{4}[(a_{31}\kappa _1+a_{13}\kappa _2)(1a_{11}\mathrm{cos}2\varphi )+\sqrt{1a_{11}^2}(a_{31}\kappa _1a_{13}\kappa _2)\mathrm{sin}2\varphi ].$$

It vanishes only if $`a_{31}\kappa _1=0`$ and $`a_{13}\kappa _2=0`$. This happens when either 1) the both curves have $`O`$ as an inflection point or 2) one curve has an inflection point and its tangent lies in the tangent plane of the other one or 3) the tangent planes of both curves coincide.

Now let $`a_{11}=1`$. The meaning of this is that the curves $`𝐫_1`$ and $`𝐫_2`$ form a curve having a continuous tangent. We introduce the angle $`\chi `$ which parametrizes the relative orientation of the Frenet frames at $`O`$ (or one can interpret $`\chi `$ as a discontinuity angle between principal normals). Then we have for the entries of the orientation matrix: $`a_{12}=a_{21}=a_{13}=a_{31}=0`$, $`a_{22}=a_{33}=\mathrm{cos}\chi `$, $`a_{23}=a_{32}=\mathrm{sin}\chi `$. Eq. (10) takes the form

$$I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)=\frac{\frac{1}{2}\kappa _1\kappa _2\mathrm{sin}\chi (s_1+s_2)s_1s_2+𝒪_4}{[(s_1+s_2)^2+𝒪_4]^{\frac{3}{2}}}.$$

Let us redefine the variables $`\rho `$ and $`\varphi `$: $`s_1=\rho \mathrm{sin}\varphi `$, $`s_2=\rho \mathrm{cos}\varphi `$ ($`\rho 0`$, $`\varphi [0,\frac{\pi }{2}]`$), then

$`{\displaystyle I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)𝑑s_1𝑑s_2}={\displaystyle \widehat{I}_{𝒲r}(\rho ,\varphi )\rho 𝑑\rho 𝑑\varphi }=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{2}\kappa _1\kappa _2(\mathrm{sin}\varphi +\mathrm{cos}\varphi )\mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\varphi \rho ^4+𝒪(\rho ^5)}{\rho ^3[(\mathrm{sin}\varphi +\mathrm{cos}\varphi )^2+𝒪(\rho ^2)]^{\frac{3}{2}}}𝑑\rho 𝑑\varphi },`$
from where we can see that the integral exists.

The case $`a_{11}=1`$ corresponds to the cusp points and requires a special consideration which is beyond the scope of the present paper. Therefore we exclude cusps from the following analysis.

## 3 A periodic curve

On the one hand, the treatment of the periodic curve case is the most resembling to that of the closed configuration. On the other hand, the periodic curves are often met in various physical and, in particular, biomechanical models. For example, the linear helices and interwound structures are common in the DNA modelling (e.g., see ).

### 3.1 A formula for the writhe

Let $`𝐫_A(s)`$ be periodic in space: $`𝐫_A(s+L_A)=𝐫_{AL}+𝐫_A(s)`$, $`L_A`$ the period, $`𝐫_{AL}=\mathrm{𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭}`$. For the tangent $`𝐭_A(s)=𝐫_A^{}(s)`$, it implies $`𝐭_A(s+L_A)=𝐭_A(s)`$. Denote $`𝐭_{A0}=𝐭_A(0)`$ and $`𝐭_{A1}=𝐭_A(L_A)`$. Consider the segment $`A:0sL_A`$. The tangent indicatrix is a *closed* curve which sweeps out an area $`S_A`$ on the unit sphere $`𝐒^2`$ (in the same sense as in the Fuller first theorem). Now construct a ribbon $`R_A`$ for the segment $`A`$ in the same manner as it is done in the proof of the Fuller first theorem . Generally, the ribbon $`R_A`$ is determined by the unit principal normal vector $`𝐧_A(s)`$. However, we should account for the possible inflection points of $`A`$ with the discontinuous normals. Because of this, in the vicinities of the inflection points the ribbon $`R_A`$ is to be arbitrary modified to make it continuous with a new modified generating vector $`𝐮_A`$. Due to the periodicity property, $`𝐮_{A0}𝐮_A(0)=𝐮_A(L_A)𝐮_{A1}`$. For the sake of simplicity, we shall be also assuming, here and further, that $`𝐮_{A0}=𝐧_A(0)`$ and $`𝐮_{A1}=𝐧_A(L_A)`$.

The twist of $`R_A`$, which is well defined for non-closed ribbons as well, satisfies the equation

$$𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)+\frac{S_A}{2\pi }=0mod1$$
(11)
(the above follows from the proof of the Fuller first theorem which, in turn, is a consequence of the Gauß-Bonnet theorem).

At each point of the ribbon $`A`$ we can define an orthonormal frame $`\{𝐭_A(s),𝐮_A(s),𝐭_A(s)\times 𝐮_A(s)\}`$, which is an element of $`SO(3)`$. Thus, the ribbon $`A`$ corresponds to a closed loop $`\widehat{A}`$ in the space of orientations $`SO(3)`$ . Following Hannay , we define an integer number $`N_2`$ which is zero if $`\widehat{A}`$ may be continuously deformed to a point (i.e., if it is contractible) and $`N=1`$ otherwise. Then Eq. (11 ) is a consequence of the Hannay formula

$$𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)+\frac{S_A}{2\pi }=Nmod2.$$

Now build a planar non-self-intersecting segment $`C:𝐫_C(s)C^3`$, for $`0sL_C`$, that closes the segment $`A`$. That means that $`𝐫_C(0)=𝐫_A(L_A)`$, $`𝐫_C(L_C)=𝐫_A(0)`$, $`𝐭_C(0)=𝐭_{A1}`$, $`𝐭_C(L_C)=𝐭_{A0}`$ ($`𝐭_C𝐫_C^{}(s)`$) and $`C`$ lies in the plane determined by $`𝐭_{A0}`$ and $`𝐫_{AL}`$ (if $`𝐭_{A0}𝐫_{AL}`$, then we choose the plane spanned by $`𝐭_{A0}`$ and $`𝐭_{A0}^{}`$). The closing segment $`C`$ may be chosen such that its $`ϵ`$-vicinity does not cross the ribbon $`R_A`$. In addition, we require that the principal normal at the beginning and at the end points be well defined and have the same direction: $`𝐧_C(0)=𝐧_C(L_C)`$. Then the number of inflection points of $`C`$ is even.

There exists a ribbon $`(𝐫_C(s),𝐯_C(s))`$ lying entirely in the plane of $`C`$ with its ends defined by the normal vectors $`𝐯_C(0)=𝐧_C(0)`$ and $`𝐯_C(L_C)=𝐧_C(L_C)`$. Clearly, its twist is zero. (In the case of no inflection points, this ribbon coincides with the Frenet ribbon.) Construct another ribbon on the curve $`C`$ with a vector $`𝐮_C(s)`$, $`𝐮_C(s),𝐮_C(s)𝐭_C(s)0`$, which differs from the vector $`𝐯_C(s)`$ by a constant angle: $`𝐮_C(s)𝐯_C(s)=\mathrm{cos}\varphi _0=const`$, and $`𝐮_C(0)=𝐮_{A1}`$. It is evident that $`𝐮_C(L_C)=𝐮_C(0)`$, $`𝐮_C(L_C)=𝐮_{A0}`$ and $`𝒯w(𝐫_C,𝐮_C)=0`$.

Thus, joining the (oriented) ribbons $`A:(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)`$ and $`C:(𝐫_C,𝐮_C)`$ gives a continuous closed ribbon which we shall denote by $`A+C`$. The linking number of a closed ribbon is an integer and, by applying the Călugăreanu-White-Fuller relation to $`A+C`$, we have

$$k_{A+C}=𝒲r_{A+C}+𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)+𝒯w(𝐫_C,𝐮_C).$$
(12)
From Eq. (12) we obtain $`𝒲r_{A+C}=k_{A+C}𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)`$ and, taking into account Eq. (11),

$$𝒲r_{A+C}=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }mod1.$$
(13)
In  it was shown that the last relation may be refined as follows

$$𝒲r_{A+C}=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }+𝒯n_C+1mod2,$$
(14)
where $`𝒯n_C`$ is the turning number of the closing curve.

Since $`𝒯n_C`$ is integer, the fractional part of the writhe does not depend on the closing curve $`C`$ and we may write

$$𝒲r_A=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }mod1.$$

We see that in the case of a periodic curve the same formula is valid for the writhe of a period as in the case of a smoothly closed loop.

Note that the tangent indicatrix of the joined ribbon differs from that of $`A`$ by an appendage corresponding to the planar segment $`C`$. This appendage has an area of $`2\pi 𝒯n_C`$, hence, it does not contribute to the total spherical area of the domain enclosed by $`A+C`$, counted modulo $`2\pi `$. In other words, $`S_{A+C}=S_Amod2\pi `$.

If the writhe of a period is to be calculated by using the double integral formula of Eq. (4), then at first the segment of the period should be closed by an additional planar segment as described above and after that the formula Eq. (4) should be applied to the entire closed loop, though the double integral in Eq. (4) is also well defined for open segments.

Another way to compute the value of the writhe $`𝒲r_A`$ is the application of Eq. (12):

$$𝒲r_A=k_{A+C}𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A),$$
(15)
which is valid for any appropriate closing segment built as described above. Note also that Eq. (15) is an *exact* formula. With the help of the relation between the linking number and the contractibility number , Eq. (15) may be written in the form

$$𝒲r_A=N+𝒯n_C+1\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L_A}{}}𝐫_A^{}\times 𝐮_Ad𝐮_Amod2.$$
(16)
Eq. (16) may be useful since one often needs to know only the fractional part of the writhe.

### 3.2 Example

Consider a $`2\pi `$-periodic spatial curve

$$𝐫=(\mathrm{cos}s,\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{cos}2s,\frac{s}{2}+\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{sin}2s)$$
(17)
(Fig. 1). Its tangent vector is

$$𝐭=(\mathrm{sin}s,\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{sin}2s,\mathrm{cos}^2s)$$
(18)
and the tangent indicatrix is a 8-shaped self-intersecting curve consisting of the two identical loops (Fig. 2). Let $`S_1`$ be the spherical area inside one loop, then the complementary area of the other loop equals $`4\pi S_1`$. Thus, the sum of the areas of the two domains defined as in the Fuller first theorem, amounts to $`4\pi `$, and, according to Eq. (14), $`𝒲r=0mod2`$.

The last conclusion is evidently true for every periodic curve, the tangent indicatrix of which takes a symmetric form of the figure-8 with the identical loops. (In fact, the loops need only have equal areas.)

This result may be easily verified (and refined) by applying Eq. (15). To this end, we first construct a Frenet ribbon with the principal normal vector

$$𝐧=\frac{1}{\kappa }\frac{d𝐭}{ds}=\frac{1}{\kappa }(\mathrm{cos}s,\mathrm{cos}2s,\mathrm{sin}2s),$$

the curvature $`\kappa =\sqrt{1+\mathrm{cos}^2s}`$. One edge of the Frenet ribbon $`𝐫+ϵ𝐧`$ is shown in Fig. 1 as a thick line. The one-period segment may be closed with a planar curve as described above and an additional segment of the ribbon is to be built to close the Frenet ribbon of the initial curve. It is easy to check that the linking of the two edges for the entire closed loop is zero. Now compute the twist of the open Frenet ribbon by using Eq. (3) into which the torsion $`\tau =\frac{1}{\kappa ^2}𝐫^{}𝐫^{\prime \prime }𝐫^{\prime \prime \prime }=\mathrm{sin}s\frac{\mathrm{cos}^2s+2}{\mathrm{cos}^2s+1}`$ is substituted. Clearly,

$$𝒯w_F(𝐫)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{2\pi }{}}\tau (s)𝑑s=0,$$

and by Eq. (15) we obtain finally $`𝒲r=0`$.

## 4 An open segment of a curve with the parallel initial and terminal tangents

We again deal with the segment $`A`$ of a spatial curve $`𝐫_A(s),0sL_A`$. We now make no assumptions on the behaviour of this curve outside the segment $`A`$. Only one additional condition is to be satisfied: the tangent vector at the beginning is the same as one at the ending point: $`𝐭_{A0}𝐭_A(0)=𝐭_A(L_A)𝐭_{A1}`$. Then the tangent indicatrix is again a *closed* curve sweeping out the area $`S_A`$. We construct the ribbon $`R_A`$ for the segment $`A`$ by using the unit vector $`𝐮_A(s),𝐮_A(s)𝐭_A(s)0`$, in the same manner as in the case of the periodic curve. The difference now is that, generally, $`𝐮_{A0}𝐮_A(0)𝐮_A(L_A)𝐮_{A1}`$. We denote by $`\gamma `$ the angle from $`𝐮_{A1}`$ to $`𝐮_{A0}`$ (actually, from $`𝐧_{A1}`$ to $`𝐧_{A0}`$) (Fig. 3). Note that both vectors lie in the plane orthogonal to $`𝐭_{A0}=𝐭_{A1}`$.

Due to the Gauß-Bonnet formula ,

$$S_A+2\pi 𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)+\gamma =0mod2\pi .$$
(19)
The next step is to build a planar non-self-intersecting segment $`C:𝐫_C(s)C^3`$, for $`0sL_C`$, to close the segment $`A`$. $`C`$ lies in the plane spanned by $`𝐭_{A0}`$ and $`𝐫_{AL}`$ (or $`𝐭_A^{}(0)`$, if $`𝐭_{A0}𝐫_{AL}`$) and $`𝐫_C(0)=𝐫_A(L_A)`$, $`𝐫_C(L_C)=𝐫_A(0)`$, $`𝐭_C(0)=𝐭_{A1}`$, $`𝐭_C(L_C)=𝐭_{A0}`$. We can also require that $`C`$ have an even number of inflection points, all of them being interior. In addition, $`C`$ is such that it is separated from the ribbon $`R_A`$ by the distance more than $`ϵ`$.

A ribbon on $`C`$ exists that lies in the same plane as $`C`$ and with its end vectors coinciding with $`𝐧_C(0)=𝐧_C(L_C)`$. Denote its generating vector by $`𝐯_C(s)`$. We build a ribbon on the curve $`C`$ by using a vector $`𝐮_C(s)`$, $`𝐮_C(s)𝐭_C(s)=0`$, which is the vector $`𝐯_C(s)`$ turned through a constant angle $`\varphi _0`$: $`𝐮_C(s)𝐯_C(s)=\mathrm{cos}\varphi _0=const`$. Choose $`\varphi _0`$ such that $`𝐮_C(0)=𝐮_{A1}`$. By the construction of $`C`$, $`𝐮_C(L_C)=𝐮_C(0)`$ and the ribbon $`C`$ has zero twist: $`𝒯w(𝐫_C,𝐮_C)=0`$.

We see that the joined ribbon $`A+C`$ may have only one point of discontinuity, namely, the starting point of $`A`$ (corresponding to the terminal point of $`C`$). At this point the twist angle between $`𝐮_C(L_C)`$ and $`𝐮_{A0}`$ is exactly $`\gamma `$.

The following relation is valid, according to , for the discontinuous ribbon $`A+C`$ (see also Appendix A for a different proof)

$$2\pi (𝒯w_{A+C}+𝒲r_{A+C})+\gamma =0mod2\pi .$$
(20)
The sum $`𝒯w_{A+C}+𝒲r_{A+C}`$, which is not integer, may be interpreted as the linking number of *a cord*. The latter is a generalization of a notion of the ribbon and was introduced by Fuller in .

Since the twist is additive, $`𝒯w_{A+C}=𝒯w_A+𝒯w_C`$, $`𝒯w_A𝒯w(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)`$, $`𝒯w_C𝒯w(𝐫_C,𝐮_C)=0`$.

Combining Eq. (19) and Eq. (20) leads to

$$𝒲r_{A+C}=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }mod1.$$
(21)
By the argument similar to that used in the case of the periodic curve it may be shown that

$$𝒲r_{A+C}=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }+𝒯n_C+1mod2.$$
(22)
Again, the tangent indicatrix of $`C`$ does not change the area of the domain enclosed by $`A+C`$, counted $`mod2\pi `$, and we conclude that the fractional part of the writhe does not depend on the particular shape of the closing curve constructed under the above conditions:

$$𝒲r_A=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }mod1.$$
(23)
The fractional component of $`𝒲r`$ may be also computed by means of Eq. (20):

$$𝒲r_A=𝒯w_A\frac{\gamma }{2\pi }mod1.$$
(24)
Note that Eq. (24) does not refer to the closing segment. All what is necessary to know is the twist for the original segment $`A`$ and the angle $`\gamma `$ between the normals $`𝐧_{A0}`$ and $`𝐧_{A1}`$. An analogue to Eq. (24) was used in the analysis of the elongation of a supercoiled DNA molecule carried out by Bouchiat and Mézard  (though their angle $`\chi `$ is measured in the opposite direction to $`\gamma `$).

## 5 An arbitrary open segment

### 5.1 The general case

The most general case takes place if we dismiss the equality condition of the tangent vectors at both ends of the spatial curve segment $`A:𝐫_A(s),0sL_A`$. In other words, the tangent indicatrix has not to be closed any more. Nevertheless, we can construct the ribbon $`R_A:(𝐫_A,𝐮_A)`$ in exactly the same manner as we did it previously. The orientations of the generating vector $`𝐮_A`$ at the ends may be different.

In order to get a measure for the writhe of $`A`$ consistent with the above considered cases we choose to close the tangent indicatrix with a geodesic . This choice is natural and it is supported by treatment of analogous problems in optics and quantum mechanics . (In the generic case $`𝐭_{A0}\pm 𝐭_{A1}`$, there are two possible geodesics, we take one of them; the case $`𝐭_{A0}=𝐭_{A1}`$ will be discussed later.)

Let $`G`$ be a planar segment $`𝐫_G(s),0sL_G`$, in the plane determined by $`𝐭_{A0},𝐭_{A1}`$ such that $`𝐫_G(0)=𝐫_A(L_A)`$ and $`𝐫_G^{}(0)=𝐭_{A1}`$, $`𝐫_G^{}(L_G)=𝐭_{A0}`$. We may always require that $`G`$ have no inflection points.

We build a ribbon $`R_G`$ based on the segment $`G`$ and the vector $`𝐮_G(s),0sL_G`$, which is the principal normal $`𝐧_G(s)`$ turned around the tangent $`𝐭_G`$ through the constant angle $`\gamma _1`$ such that $`𝐮_{G0}𝐮_G(0)=𝐮_{A1}`$. Therefore, the two ribbons $`R_A`$ and $`R_G`$ are continuously glued to produce the joined ribbon $`R_{A+G}`$.

We now can see that the assumption of the previous case is satisfied for the joined curve $`A+G`$: it has the same tangents at the ends. By applying Eq. (22) to $`A+G`$, we obtain

$$𝒲r_{A+G}=\frac{S_{A+G}}{2\pi }+𝒯n_C+1mod2.$$
(25)
It should be noted that although Eq. (25) is valid $`mod2`$, actually we may define and compute only fractional part of the writhe because of an arbitrariness of one of two closing geodesics chosen. To put this another way, we are able to determine the area only $`mod2\pi `$. Therefore, the writhe of an open segment may be determined by the following relation:

$$𝒲r_A=\frac{S_{A+G}}{2\pi }mod1.$$
(26)
Instead of Eq. (24), we come to

$$𝒲r_{A+G}=𝒯w_{A+G}\frac{\gamma }{2\pi }mod1,$$
(27)
where $`𝒯w_{A+G}=𝒯w_A+𝒯w_G`$. But $`𝒯w_G=𝒯w(𝐫_G,𝐮_G)=0`$ by the same argument as for the closing segment for a periodic curve.

The angle $`\gamma `$ is the angle measured from $`𝐮_{G1}𝐮_G(L_G)`$ to $`𝐮_{A0}`$. It may be represented as the sum $`\gamma =\gamma _1+\gamma _0`$, where $`\gamma _0`$ is an angle from the normal $`𝐧_{G1}`$ to $`𝐮_{A0}(=𝐧_{A0})`$ (Fig. 4).

Finally, we arrive at

$$𝒲r_A=𝒯w_A\frac{\gamma _1+\gamma _0}{2\pi }mod1,$$
(28)
where the angles $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _0`$ are determined by the equations

$$\mathrm{cos}\gamma _1=𝐧_{A1}𝐧_{G0},\mathrm{sin}\gamma _1=(𝐧_{A1}\times 𝐧_{G0})𝐭_{A1},$$

$$\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0=𝐧_{A0}𝐧_{G1},\mathrm{sin}\gamma _0=(𝐧_{G1}\times 𝐧_{A0})𝐭_{A0}.$$

The normal vectors $`𝐧_{G0}`$ and $`𝐧_{G1}`$ may be easily expressed as functions of the initial and terminal tangents of $`A`$. Indeed, the vector $`𝐧_{G0}`$ lies in the plane spanned by the vectors $`𝐭_{A0}`$ and $`𝐭_{A1}`$. Also, $`𝐧_{G0}𝐭_{A1}=0`$ and $`𝐧_{G0}𝐭_{A0}>0`$. Hence,

$$𝐧_{G0}=\frac{𝐭_{A0}(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})𝐭_{A1}}{\sqrt{1(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})^2}}.$$

Similarly, the vector $`𝐧_{G1}`$ lies in the same plane and $`𝐧_{G1}𝐭_{A0}=0`$ and $`𝐧_{G1}𝐭_{A1}<0`$. Therefore,

$$𝐧_{G1}=\frac{𝐭_{A1}(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})𝐭_{A0}}{\sqrt{1(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})^2}}.$$

The angles $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _0`$ can be found from their trigonometrical functions

$`\mathrm{cos}\gamma _1={\displaystyle \frac{𝐧_{A1}𝐭_{A0}}{\sqrt{1(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})^2}}},\mathrm{sin}\gamma _1={\displaystyle \frac{𝐛_{A1}𝐭_{A0}}{\sqrt{1(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})^2}}},`$ (29)
$`\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0={\displaystyle \frac{𝐧_{A0}𝐭_{A1}}{\sqrt{1(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})^2}}},\mathrm{sin}\gamma _0={\displaystyle \frac{𝐛_{A0}𝐭_{A1}}{\sqrt{1(𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{A1})^2}}},`$ (30)
where $`𝐛_A(s)=𝐭_A(s)\times 𝐧_A(s)`$ is the binormal vector and $`𝐛_{A0}𝐛_A(0)`$, $`𝐛_{A1}𝐛_A(L_A)`$.

We can conclude that Eq. (28), together with Eqs. (29), (30), provides a means to compute the fractional part of the writhe for an (almost) arbitrary curve with open ends.

Remark 1. It follows from the above that the writhe of a curve segment (closed or open) whose tangent indicatrix is geodesic and such that $`𝐭_{A0}+𝐭_{A1}0`$, is an integer. In other words, the writhe of any planar curve is always integer.

Consider now the case $`𝐭_{A0}=𝐭_{A1}`$. The closing geodesic $`G`$ is not determined uniquely then. If we examine the behaviour of the tangent indicatrix in the vicinities $`s=0`$ and $`s=L_A`$ (also paying attention to the neighbour curves on $`𝐒^2`$ close to the critical one), then we see that the plane of the closing geodesics may rotate through $`\pi `$ as the length of the segment changes so that the critical point $`𝐭_{A0}=𝐭_{A1}`$ is passed. In mechanics terms, this phenomenon may be called flipping of the closing segment. It is the critical point where the choice of one geodesics based on the continuity argument is no more valid.

Speaking more strictly, the value of the writhe for a segment with the oppositely directed ends is not determined. It may be ascribed a value which is average of the two limits taken as the length of the segment is pre-critical and post-critical. That means that the great circle plane for the closing geodesics in the critical point has to be taken orthogonal to the limiting positions both of the great circle planes chosen for the growing segment $`[ϵ,L_Aϵ]`$ and the decreasing one $`[ϵ,L_A+ϵ]`$ as $`ϵ0`$. (We assume that the definition segment for the curve $`A`$ may be infinitesimally extended in both directions.) Formally, this choice is a plane spanned by $`𝐭_{A0},𝐧_{A0}+𝐧_{A1}`$. For such a closure, $`\gamma _1+\gamma _0=\pi `$ and Eq. (28) becomes

$$𝒲r_A=𝒯w_A\frac{1}{2}mod1,$$

while Eq. (26) does not change (as usual, by $`S_{A+G}`$ is meant the area swept out by the closed curve $`A+G`$ defined as above). If, in addition, $`𝐧_{A0}+𝐧_{A1}=0`$, then a plane spanned by $`𝐭_{A0}`$ and $`𝐛_{A0}`$ has to be chosen.

Remark 2. In the above consideration we have used the ribbon generally based on the principal normal (cf. ), though any other continuous ribbon may be taken to obtain essentially the same formula for writhe (of course, the specific expressions for the angles $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _0`$ should be appropriately modified).

In particular, the fractional part of writhe equals the twist of a special ribbon such that its generating normal vectors at the ends have they property that they could be transformed to each other by a parallel transport along the closing geodesics (i.e. $`\gamma _1+\gamma _0=0mod2\pi `$).

### 5.2 A broken curve

The above approach may be naturally extended to a sequence of disjoint segments. Let $`A=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}A^{(i)}`$ be a set of $`n`$ continuous fragments. Each $`A^{(i)}`$ is oriented so that $`A_0^{(i)}`$ and $`A_1^{(i)}`$ be its initial and terminal points, respectively. Based on $`A^{(i)}`$, a ribbon $`R_A^{(i)}`$ may be built as it was done for a single piece of curve. We also construct $`n`$ additional pieces that tie the ending point of the $`i`$-th fragment to the initial point of the consequent one. We identify formally the point $`A_0^{(n+1)}`$ with $`A_0^{(1)}`$ to make the entire curve closed. The connecting parts are built in exactly the same way as the closure of a single segment was made in the previous subsection. Thus, we can repeat our arguments to obtain

$$𝒲r_A=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}𝒯w_i\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}(\gamma _1^{(i)}+\gamma _0^{(i)})mod1,$$
(31)
where $`𝒯w_i`$ is the twist of the ribbon $`R_A^{(i)}`$, the angles $`\gamma _1^{(i)}`$ and $`\gamma _0^{(i)}`$ are determined by their trigonometric functions

$`\mathrm{cos}\gamma _1^{(i)}={\displaystyle \frac{𝐧_{A1}^{(i)}𝐭_{A0}^{(j)}}{\sqrt{1\left(𝐭_{A0}^{(j)}𝐭_{A1}^{(i)}\right)^2}}},\mathrm{sin}\gamma _1^{(i)}={\displaystyle \frac{𝐛_{A1}^{(i)}𝐭_{A0}^{(j)}}{\sqrt{1\left(𝐭_{A0}^{(j)}𝐭_{A1}^{(i)}\right)^2}}},`$ (32)
$`\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0^{(i)}={\displaystyle \frac{𝐧_{A0}^{(j)}𝐭_{A1}^{(i)}}{\sqrt{1\left(𝐭_{A0}^{(j)}𝐭_{A1}^{(i)}\right)^2}}},\mathrm{sin}\gamma _0^{(i)}={\displaystyle \frac{𝐛_{A0}^{(j)}𝐭_{A1}^{(i)}}{\sqrt{1\left(𝐭_{A0}^{(j)}𝐭_{A1}^{(i)}\right)^2}}},`$ (33)
and $`𝐭_{A\upsilon }^{(i)},𝐧_{A\upsilon }^{(i)},𝐛_{A\upsilon }^{(i)}`$ are the Frenet frames at the beginning ($`\upsilon =0`$) and at the end ($`\upsilon =1`$) of the $`i`$-th segment ($`i=1,2,\mathrm{},n,j=1+(imodn)`$).

Note that the value of writhe generally depends on both the order of fragments and the orientations along them.

### 5.3 A non-smoothly closed loop

A particular case takes place when the segment $`A`$ forms a non-smoothly closed shape. This means discontinuity of the tangent vector at the initial point and the tangent indicatrix is not closed. The whole procedure described above may be well applied to such a loop though one complication appears: the resulting closed curve to which the basic Călugăreanu-White-Fuller formula is to be applied has a self-intersection point at the beginning of the loop considered. Generally, the writhe is not defined for such shapes. However, on the one hand, it was shown in Section 2.3 that the Gauß integral exists unless the tangent at the loop starting point directs exactly opposite to the end tangent. On the other hand, under the same limitation, we can restrict ourselves to consideration of two limiting curves approaching the self-intersection shape from two different sides. As it is well known, the writhe jumps by $`2`$ as a curve crosses itself . Thus, the fractional part of the writhe is not affected by self-intersection and may be computed by Eq. (26) or Eq. (28) in the same way as for the open segment.

## 6 Adding the writhe

The aim of this section is to obtain an equation that expresses the writhe of a segment concatenated from two or more shorter segments as a function of the writhes of those smaller elements.

### 6.1 A special case of a closed tangent indicatrix

We start with a consideration of an open or closed segment $`A=𝐫_A(s):[0,L_A]^3`$ that has a (smoothly) closed tangent indicatrix $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ on $`𝐒^2`$. Let $`D\stackrel{~}{A}`$ be the point corresponding to the starting tangent $`𝐭_A(0)`$ and a point $`E\stackrel{~}{A}`$ represents some other value of $`s=s_1:0<s_1<L_A`$. We draw a geodesic $`\stackrel{~}{G}`$ to tie the points $`E`$ and $`D`$ (oriented from $`E`$ to $`D`$). Denote the two subsegments $`A_1=𝐫_A(s):[0,s_1]^3`$ and $`A_2=𝐫_A(s):[s_1,L_A]^3`$. Thus, $`A_1+A_2=A`$. The writhe of the initial segment $`A`$ is, according to Eq. (22),

$$𝒲r_A=\frac{S_A}{2\pi }1mod2.$$

Apply now Eq. (26) to the both parts of $`A`$:

$$𝒲r_{A_1}=\frac{S_{A_1+G}}{2\pi }mod1,𝒲r_{A_2}=\frac{S_{A_2G}}{2\pi }mod1.$$

(Recall that the sign “$``$” in $`G`$ denotes its reversed orientation.)

Clearly, $`S_{A_1+G}+S_{A_2G}=S_A`$ and therefore

$$𝒲r_A=𝒲r_{A_1}+𝒲r_{A_2}mod1.$$
(34)
We can also reformulate this addition rule by expressing the writhe as a function of the twisting numbers. Then, Eqs. (24), (28) imply

$`𝒲r_A=𝒯w_Amod1,`$
$`𝒲r_{A_1}=𝒯w_{A_1}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _1+\gamma _0}{2\pi }}mod1,𝒲r_{A_2}=𝒯w_{A_2}+{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma _1+\gamma _0}{2\pi }}mod1.`$
Here, $`\gamma _1`$ is an angle from $`𝐧_A(s_1)`$ to $`𝐧_{G0}`$, the initial normal vector of $`G`$. Respectively, $`\gamma _0`$ is an angle from $`𝐧_{G1}`$, the terminal normal vector of $`G`$, to $`𝐧_A(0)`$.

The twist $`𝒯w`$ is additive, hence $`𝒯w_A=𝒯w_{A_1}+𝒯w_{A_2}`$ and we again come to Eq. (34).

### 6.2 Another special case: two fragments

If the segment $`A`$ forms a non-closed tangent indicatrix $`\stackrel{~}{A}𝐒^2`$, then the addition rule is more complex. Let $`F\stackrel{~}{A},FD`$ be the point corresponding to $`𝐭_A(L_A)`$. In addition to $`\stackrel{~}{G}=ED`$, we draw two more geodesics: $`\stackrel{~}{H}=FE`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{K}=FD`$ (Fig. 5). Applying Eq. (26) to the entire $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$$`\stackrel{~}{A_1}`$ and to its parts $`\stackrel{~}{A_2}`$ yields

$`𝒲r_A={\displaystyle \frac{S_{A+K}}{2\pi }}mod1,`$
$`𝒲r_{A_1}={\displaystyle \frac{S_{A_1+G}}{2\pi }}mod1,𝒲r_{A_2}={\displaystyle \frac{S_{A_2+H}}{2\pi }}mod1.`$ (35)
Taking into account the additivity of area, we have

$$S_{A+K}=S_{A_1+G}+S_{A_2+H}+S_{\mathrm{}DEF}mod4\pi .$$
(36)
The triangle $`DEF`$ is formed by geodesics and its signed area may be calculated as

$$S_{\mathrm{}DEF}=\sigma _{DEF}(\mathrm{}DEF+\mathrm{}EFD+\mathrm{}FDE\pi ),$$
(37)
where $`\sigma _{DEF}=sign((𝐭_{A0}\times 𝐭_{Am})𝐭_{A1})`$, $`𝐭_{Am}𝐭_A(s_1)`$.

The angles of the triangle can be found knowing the vectors of its vertices $`D,E,F`$ ($`𝐭_{A0},𝐭_{Am}`$ and $`𝐭_{A1}`$, respectively):

$`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{}DEF={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{K}\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{G}\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{H}}{\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{G}\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{H}}},`$
$`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{}EFD={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{G}\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{H}\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{K}}{\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{H}\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{K}}},`$ (38)
$`\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{}FDE={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{H}\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{K}\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{G}}{\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{K}\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{G}}},`$
where

$$\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{G}=𝐭_{A0}𝐭_{Am},\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{H}=𝐭_{Am}𝐭_{A1},\mathrm{cos}\stackrel{~}{K}=𝐭_{A1}𝐭_{A0},$$

$$\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{G}=|𝐭_{A0}\times 𝐭_{Am}|,\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{H}=|𝐭_{Am}\times 𝐭_{A1}|,\mathrm{sin}\stackrel{~}{K}=|𝐭_{A1}\times 𝐭_{A0}|.$$

Coming back to the addition rule for the writhe, we make use of Eq. (36). The resulting equation then takes the form

$$𝒲r_A=𝒲r_{A_1}+𝒲r_{A_2}+\frac{S_{\mathrm{}DEF}}{2\pi }mod1.$$
(39)
By means of Eqs. (37), (38), the area term in the last equation may be computed explicitly.

Note that if $`E\stackrel{~}{K}`$, then the area term in Eq. (39) is zero.

### 6.3 The writhe of a growing curve

Though Eq. (39) is valid modulo 1, it can be used for computation of the exact value of the writhe of a curve which can be considered as being incrementally elongated. Suppose we add to the curve $`A_1`$ a fragment $`A_2`$ which is short enough such that $`|𝒲r_{A_2}+\frac{S_{\mathrm{}DEF}}{2\pi }|1`$. Assume also that the exact value of $`𝒲r_{A_1}`$ is known. In the absence of self-intersections, the writhe is a continuous function of the arclength and we can apply Eq. (39) omitting $`mod1`$ to get the exact value of the writhe of the extended curve. Starting with a short fragment and reiterating the above procedure, it is possible to compute the writhe of an arbitrarily long curve in $`n`$ steps where $`n`$ is the number of increments.

### 6.4 The general case

We now come to the general case. Let $`A=𝐫_A(s),0sL_A`$ be a non-closed segment with the tangent indicatrix $`\stackrel{~}{A}𝐒^2`$. Let $`\{s_i\},i=1,\mathrm{},N`$, be the values of the arclength such that $`0<s_1<s_2<\mathrm{}<s_i<s_{i+1}<\mathrm{}<s_N<L_A`$. For every $`s_i`$ we can compute the tangent $`𝐭_{Ai}𝐭_A(s_i)`$ and denote $`𝐭_{A0}=𝐭_A(0)`$ and $`𝐭_{A,N+1}=𝐭_A(L_A)`$. Let $`E_i\stackrel{~}{A}`$, $`i=0,\mathrm{},N+1`$, correspond to $`𝐭_{Ai}`$.

Choose some $`j,1jN`$, and apply the addition rule to the two segments $`E_0E_j`$ and $`E_jE_{N+1}`$:

$$𝒲r_{0,N+1}=𝒲r_{0,j}+𝒲r_{j,N+1}+\frac{S_{0,j,N+1}}{2\pi }mod1,$$

where $`S_{0,j,N+1}`$ is the signed area of the geodesic triangle $`\mathrm{}E_0E_jE_{N+1}`$. If $`j>1`$, we can further apply the same rule to compute $`𝒲r_{0,j}`$ as a sum of the writhes of subsegments. The same is also possible to do with $`𝒲r_{j,N+1}`$, if $`j<N`$. After iterating this procedure as far as possible (until all the $`𝒲r_{i,i+1},i=0,\mathrm{},N`$, are present in the summation formula) we finally come to

$$𝒲r_{0,N+1}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{N}{}}𝒲r_{i,i+1}+\frac{S_{0,1,\mathrm{},N,N+1}}{2\pi }mod1,$$
(40)
where $`S_{0,1,\mathrm{},N,N+1}`$ is the signed area of the spherical polygon formed by geodesics $`E_{01},E_{12},\mathrm{},E_{j,j+1},\mathrm{},E_{N,N+1},E_{N+1,0}`$ (by $`E_{ij}`$ is denoted the geodesic $`E_iE_j,ij`$). This area may be computed as a sum

$$S_{0,1,\mathrm{},N,N+1}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}S(\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1})mod4\pi .$$

By using Eq. (37) the area of each spherical triangle can be presented in the form

$$S(\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1})=\sigma _{0,i,i+1}(\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1}+\mathrm{}E_iE_{i+1}E_0+\mathrm{}E_{i+1}E_0E_i\pi ),$$

$$\sigma _{0,i,i+1}=sign((𝐭_{A0}\times 𝐭_{Ai})𝐭_{Ai+1}),$$

and each angle can be expressed as a function of $`𝐭_{Ai}`$ (see Eq. (38)).

Another way to represent the area of a spherical $`N+2`$-gon is

$$S_{0,1,\mathrm{},N,N+1}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{N+1}{}}\sigma _{i1,i,i+1}(\mathrm{}E_{i1}E_iE_{i+1}\pi )mod2\pi ,$$

identifying $`E_1E_{N+1}`$ and $`E_{N+2}E_0`$.

## 7 The writhe of a polygonal line

In this section we consider a curve consisting of a number of straight line segments. Such a curve can serve as a model of a self-avoiding walk  or as a skeleton description of a linear polymer .

Though the polygonal line has a discontinuous tangent, it may be considered as a limit of a smooth curve which differs from the polygonal line by arbitrarily small planar arcs in the vicinities of every point of discontinuity. The consequitive tangent directions are then connected by geodesics on $`𝐒^2`$ . It can also describe the path of a scattered light beam .

Conversely, an arbitrary smooth curve may be approximated by a polygonal line. In  one can find an estimate of the difference between the writhing numbers of a closed smooth curve and a polygonal curve inscribed within.

Several methods have been proposed for computation of the writhe of closed polygons . Here we give an exact expression for the fractional part of the writhe for an arbitrary polygonal line. The formula does not involve the double summation.

Let $`A=\{P_i\},i=0,\mathrm{},N+1`$, be a sequence of points in $`^3`$. For every interval $`(P_m,P_{m+1})`$, a tangent vector is $`𝐭_m=\stackrel{}{P_mP_{m+1}}/|\stackrel{}{P_mP_{m+1}}|,m=0,\mathrm{},N`$. We assume that $`\stackrel{}{P_mP_{m+1}}\stackrel{}{P_nP_{n+1}}=\mathrm{},\text{if}𝐭_n\times 𝐭_m=\mathrm{𝟎},mn,m,n=0,\mathrm{},N`$. The tangent indicatrix $`\stackrel{~}{A}𝐒^2`$ is a line consisting of fragments of geodesics $`E_mE_{m+1},m=0,\mathrm{},N1,E_m=𝐭_m𝐒^2\stackrel{~}{A}`$. According to the above developed approach, we add the closing geodesic $`E_NE_0`$; it corresponds to an additional $`(N+1)`$-th fragment of $`A`$ such that $`𝐭_{N+1}=𝐭_0`$.

In order to make use of the formula for writhe, we have to calculate the signed area of a spherical polygon $`𝒫=\{E_0\mathrm{}E_N\}`$. It may be represented as a union of triangles

$$𝒫=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1}.$$

Each triangle $`\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1}`$ has a signed spherical area

$$S_{0,i,i+1}=\sigma _{0,i,i+1}S(\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1})mod4\pi ,$$

where $`S(\mathrm{}E_0E_iE_{i+1})=\alpha _{0,i,i+1}+\alpha _{i,i+1,0}+\alpha _{i+1,0,i}\pi `$ is a non-negative area of a spherical triangle with the angles $`\alpha _{klm}`$ and $`\sigma _{klm}=sign((𝐭_k\times 𝐭_l)𝐭_m)`$. The signed area of the polygon $`𝒫`$ is

$$S_𝒫=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}S_{0,i,i+1}mod4\pi .$$

The angles $`\alpha _{klm}`$ are functions of tangents such that

$$\mathrm{cos}\alpha _{klm}=\frac{𝐭_k𝐭_m(𝐭_k𝐭_l)(𝐭_l𝐭_m)}{|𝐭_k\times 𝐭_l||𝐭_l\times 𝐭_m|},0\alpha _{klm}\pi .$$

We now are able to rewrite Eq. (26) in this particular case:

$$𝒲r_A=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{i=1}{\overset{N1}{}}S_{0,i,i+1}mod1.$$
(41)
This expression is valid for any curve in $`^3`$ that generates a tangent indicatrix containing only geodesic fragments. Also, it seems to be useful as an approximation while calculating the writhe of a smooth curve which can be properly discretized. The last means that the discretization should be better performed on its tangent indicatrix rather than on the curve in $`^3`$ itself. Conventional methods of integration may be applied to compute an approximate value of the area swept out on $`𝐒^2`$.

## 8 The writhe and the Gauß integral

The writhe of the smooth closed curve may be expressed as the double integral (Eq. (4)). It is evident that the writhe for an open segment of the length $`L`$ as defined above can no more be computed as the Gauß integral over this segment though, in most cases, the double integral itself is also well defined for smooth non-closed curves.

Our aim here is to obtain a formula connecting the both values: on the one hand, the writhe that relates to the difference between the linking number and the twisting for the ribbon built with the geodesic closure and, on the other hand, simply the double integral taken over the open segment.

### 8.1 An open curve and its closure

Consider an open smooth non-self-intersecting curve $`A=𝐫(s):[0,L]^3`$. We assume here that the tangent vectors $`𝐭(s)=𝐫^{}(s)`$ are neither parallel nor antiparallel at the ends: $`𝐭(0)\pm 𝐭(L)`$ (we will examine these cases later). We extend the curve $`A`$ with two straight line segments: $`B:𝐫_B(s_1)=𝐫(L)+s_1𝐭(L)`$, $`s_1[0,l]`$ and $`C:𝐫_C(s_2)=𝐫(0)+s_2𝐭(0)`$, $`s_2[l,0]`$. Note that the both segments have the same length $`l`$. Now connect the end points of $`B`$ and $`C`$ with the straight line segment $`D_l:𝐫_D(\xi )=(1\xi )𝐫_B(l)+\xi 𝐫_C(l)=(1\xi )(𝐫(L)+l𝐭(L))+\xi (𝐫(0)l𝐭(0))`$. The direction of $`D_l`$ is determined by its tangent

$$𝐭_D(l)=\frac{\frac{d𝐫_D(\xi )}{d\xi }}{\left|\frac{d𝐫_D(\xi )}{d\xi }\right|}=\frac{𝐫_C(l)𝐫_B(l)}{|𝐫_C(l)𝐫_B(l)|}.$$

Now let the lengths of $`B`$ and $`C`$ increase to infinity and compute the limiting orientation of the tangent $`𝐭_D`$:

$$𝐭_D\mathrm{}=\underset{l\mathrm{}}{lim}𝐭_D(l)=\frac{𝐭(L)+𝐭(0)}{|𝐭(L)+𝐭(0)|}.$$
(42)
Thus, we see that, in the limit $`l\mathrm{}`$, $`D_{\mathrm{}}`$ lies in the plane defined by the initial and end tangents of the segment $`A`$.

In the case when $`𝐭(0)=\pm 𝐭(L)`$, we can also attach two straight line segments. If $`𝐭(0)=𝐭(L)`$, then all straight lines connecting these segments belong to the same plane defined by $`𝐭(0)`$ and $`𝐫(L)𝐫(0)`$. The case $`𝐭(0)=𝐭(L)`$ requires a special consideration.

What we have now is a closed circuit $`A+B+D_l+C`$. It is smooth except for two points at the beginning and at the end of $`D_l`$. We modify $`B`$ and $`D_l`$ in the small vicinity of where they join themselves together by introducing a planar curvilinear segment $`E`$ with the tangent varying from $`𝐭(L)`$ to $`𝐭_D`$. All three segments involved belong to the same plane spanned by $`𝐭(L)`$ and $`𝐭_D`$. We can assume that the length of $`E`$ does not depend on $`l`$. The length of the shortened segment $`B_{}`$ is decreased to be $`l_{}`$.

The similar procedure may be carried out to smoothen the join of the segments $`D_l`$ and $`C`$. The new planar curvilinear segment $`F`$ belongs to the plane spanned by $`𝐭(0)`$ and $`𝐭_D`$. The length of $`F`$ is the same for every $`l`$; without loss of generality, we assume that the length of the shortened segment $`C_{}`$ equals $`l_{}`$, as well.

We have come to the smooth closed curve $`A+B_{}+E+D_{}+F+C_{}`$. We are interested in the limiting case when $`l_{}\mathrm{}`$. The tangent indicatrix of the initial curve $`A`$ is closed then by a geodesic corresponding to the limiting curve $`E_{\mathrm{}}+D_{\mathrm{}}+F_{\mathrm{}}`$. This follows from the construction of these curves and from Eq. (42). The limiting curve $`B_{\mathrm{}}+E_{\mathrm{}}+D_{\mathrm{}}+F_{\mathrm{}}`$ may be considered as an implementation of the first part $`G`$ of the closure constructed in Section 5.1. Thus, the writhe of the open segment $`A`$ may be computed as the writhe of the limiting closed curve $`A+B_{\mathrm{}}+E_{\mathrm{}}+D_{\mathrm{}}+F_{\mathrm{}}+C_{\mathrm{}}`$ and its fractional part satisfies Eq. (26) and Eq. (28).

However, for the smooth closed curve $`A+B_{\mathrm{}}+E_{\mathrm{}}+D_{\mathrm{}}+F_{\mathrm{}}+C_{\mathrm{}}`$, the writhe may be obtained by the double integral formula independently. Since the circuit consists of 6 parts, we are to consider all the pairs of them as they are involved in the double integration. For the brevity, we will denote an integral over a pair of curves $`P`$ and $`Q`$ by $`(P,Q)`$. Clearly, $`(P,Q)`$ is the same as $`(Q,P)`$.

Before proceeding with this, we obtain some simple estimate of the value of the double integral

$$I_2=\underset{0}{\overset{_2}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{_1}{}}I_{𝒲r}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2)𝑑\sigma _1𝑑\sigma _2,$$

where

$$I_{𝒲r}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2)=\frac{(𝐫_1(\sigma _1)𝐫_2(\sigma _2))(𝐭_1(\sigma _1)\times 𝐭_2(\sigma _2))}{|𝐫_1(\sigma _1)𝐫_2(\sigma _2)|^3}.$$

The integral $`I_2`$ is taken over two smooth curves $`𝐫_1(\sigma _1),\sigma _1[0,_1]`$ and $`𝐫_2(\sigma _2),\sigma _2[0,_2]`$. Let $`\mathrm{\Delta }\underset{\sigma _1,\sigma _2}{\mathrm{min}}|𝐫_1(\sigma _1)𝐫_2(\sigma _2)|>0`$. Then

$$|I_2|\underset{0}{\overset{_2}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{_1}{}}|I_{𝒲r}(\sigma _1,\sigma _2)|𝑑\sigma _1𝑑\sigma _2\underset{0}{\overset{_2}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{_1}{}}\frac{d\sigma _1d\sigma _2}{|𝐫_1(\sigma _1)𝐫_2(\sigma _2)|^2}\frac{_1_2}{\mathrm{\Delta }^2}.$$
(43)
Eq. (43) implies that $`\underset{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}}{lim}I_2=0`$ for any two curves of finite length. If one of the curves has its length of order $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ or less, i.e., $`_i=𝒪(\mathrm{\Delta }),i=1,2`$, and the other is of the finite length $`_{3i}`$, then the integral $`I_2`$ vanishes as $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}`$, too.

We now come back to the integral over the pairs of curves. The integrals over $`(B_{},B_{})`$, $`(B_{},E)`$, $`(B_{},D_{})`$, $`(E,E)`$, $`(E,D_{})`$, $`(D_{},D_{})`$, $`(D_{},F)`$, $`(D_{},C_{})`$, $`(F,F)`$, $`(F,C_{})`$, $`(C_{},C_{})`$ equal zero because the integrand vanishes for coplanar curves. If $`𝐭(0)=𝐭(L)`$, then the whole closure is planar and the integrals $`(B_{},F)`$, $`(E,F)`$, $`(E,C_{})`$ also vanish for every $`l_{}`$. If $`𝐭(0)\pm 𝐭(L)`$, then the length of $`D_{}`$ is of order $`l_{}`$ for large $`l_{}`$. Therefore, by applying Eq. (43), we obtain that the integrals $`(B_{},F)`$, $`(E,F)`$, $`(E,C_{})`$ as well as $`(A,E)`$, $`(A,D_{})`$, $`(A,F)`$ all approach zero as $`l_{}\mathrm{}`$. We denote the remaining integrals that can be non-zero as follows:

$$𝒲y=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{A}{}\underset{A}{}I_{𝒲r}(s,\stackrel{~}{s})𝑑s𝑑\stackrel{~}{s},$$

$$𝒮w_1=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{A}{}\underset{B_{\mathrm{}}}{}I_{𝒲r}(s,s_1)𝑑s_1𝑑s,𝒮w_2=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{A}{}\underset{C_{\mathrm{}}}{}I_{𝒲r}(s,s_2)𝑑s_2𝑑s,$$

$$𝒮q=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{C_{\mathrm{}}}{}\underset{B_{\mathrm{}}}{}I_{𝒲r}(s_1,s_2)𝑑s_1𝑑s_2.$$

We call them “the wrying”, “the swirl” and “the squint”, respectively.

Thus, the writhe of $`A`$ may be represented as a sum

$$𝒲r=𝒲y+𝒮w_1+𝒮w_2+𝒮q.$$
(44)
The first summand $`𝒲y`$ is simply the double integral over the open segment under consideration. Therefore, Eq. (44) provides a connection between this integral and the writhe.

Let us now examine the case of parallel tangents $`𝐭(0)=𝐭(L)`$. The two attached segments $`B`$ and $`C`$ have opposite directions then and, instead of the straight line $`D`$, we connect them by a circular arc $`\stackrel{˘}{D}`$ joining $`B`$ and $`C`$ at the same distance $`l`$ from the ends of $`A`$. The arc $`\stackrel{˘}{D}`$ lies in the plane spanned by the vectors $`𝐫(L)𝐫(0)`$ and $`𝐭(0)`$ and its length is of order $`l`$ for large $`l`$. Again, the smoothening curves $`E`$ and $`F`$ can be constructed in the similar way as it is done in the regular case. Thus, we obtain the smooth planar closure of the curve $`A`$.

After letting the lengths of $`B_{}`$ and $`C_{}`$ go to infinity and analysing the double integral components in the expression for the writhe we come to the same Eq. (44) with the right-hand terms defined as above.

It may occur that the ray $`B`$ or $`C`$ intersects the curve $`A`$. Then, generally, the writhe of the whole closed curve $`A+B+E+D+F+C`$ is not determined. The situation is the same as for a non-smoothly closed loop (Section 5.3). In the generic case, when the tangents in the point of the intersection are neither coincident nor of opposite direction, the fractional part of the writhe still can be found by the examination of the two limiting positions of the curves in the vicinity of the intersection point. Since the writhe jumps by 2 as the curve goes through itself, the half-sum of the writhes for those curves may be taken as the value of the writhe. The same approach may be applied to another singular case when the rays $`B`$ and $`C`$ cross each other. Moreover, the constraint of non-self-intersection of the initial open fragment $`A`$ my also be weakened in the similar fashion.

Next we are going to clarify the structure of the integrals $`𝒮w`$ and $`𝒮q`$.

### 8.2 The swirl

Consider

$`𝒮w_1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐫(s)𝐫(L)s_1𝐭(L))(𝐭(s)\times 𝐭(L))}{|𝐫(s)𝐫(L)s_1𝐭(L)|^3}}𝑑s_1𝑑s=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}}(𝐑(s)(𝐭(s)\times 𝐭_1)\widehat{I}_{𝒮w}(s)ds.`$ (45)
Here we denoted

$$\widehat{I}_{𝒮w}(s)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{ds_1}{[(𝐑(𝐑𝐭_1)𝐭_1)^2+(𝐑𝐭_1s_1)^2]^{\frac{3}{2}}}$$

and $`𝐑𝐑(s)𝐫(s)𝐫(L)`$, $`𝐭_1𝐭(L)`$.

We can represent $`\widehat{I}_{𝒮w}(s)`$ as

$$\widehat{I}_{𝒮w}(s)=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{ds_1}{[a^2+(bs_1)^2]^{\frac{3}{2}}},bb(s)𝐑𝐭_1,a^2a^2(s)(𝐑b𝐭_1)^2,$$

and carry out the integration to get

$$\widehat{I}_{𝒮w}(s)=\frac{s_1b}{a^2\sqrt{a^2+(bs_1)^2}}|_0^{\mathrm{}}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{a^2+b^2}(\sqrt{a^2+b^2}b)}.$$
(46)
Substituting $`a(s),b(s)`$ into Eq. (46) and the result further into Eq. (45) yields

$$𝒮w_1=\frac{1}{2\pi }_0^L\frac{𝐑(s)(𝐭(s)\times 𝐭_1)}{|𝐑(s)|(|𝐑(s)|𝐑(s)𝐭_1)}𝑑s.$$
(47)
Let us introduce the spherical coordinate system with the origin at the point $`𝐫(L)`$ and let the $`z`$-axis be directed along the ray $`B`$ (Fig. 6). Then $`𝐑(s)=(\rho \mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\rho \mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\rho \mathrm{sin}\psi )`$, $`𝐭_1=(0,0,1)`$, and $`\rho \rho (s)`$, $`\varphi \varphi (s)`$, $`\psi \psi (s)`$ are the functions describing the curve $`A`$.

In these coordinates, Eq. (47) takes the form

$$𝒮w_1=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}\varphi ^{}(1+\mathrm{sin}\psi )𝑑s.$$
(48)
Note that the swirl is zero if $`\varphi (s)=const`$, i.e., if the whole curve $`A`$ is planar. The swirl also vanishes when $`\psi (s)=\frac{\pi }{2}`$ which means that the curve $`A`$ is a straight line continuation of the ray $`B`$.

It is natural that the swirl is scale-invariant: it does not depend explicitly on how remote are the points of the curve from the ray.

The second integral $`𝒮w_2`$ over the ray $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ has the same structure.

### 8.3 The squint

Now consider the integral $`𝒮q`$ over the two rays $`B_{\mathrm{}}`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$. It is convenient to introduce the special Cartesian coordinates with the origin at the point $`𝐫(0)`$ and the $`x`$-axis directed along $`𝐫(L)𝐫(0)`$ (Fig. 7). Let $`y`$-axis lie in the plane of the ray $`B_{\mathrm{}}`$ and the $`z`$-axis be chosen such that the whole coordinate system is right-handed. Denote by $`\varphi ,\varphi [0,\pi ]`$, the angle from the $`x`$-axis to the direction of $`𝐭(L)`$. The orientation of the ray $`C_{\mathrm{}}`$ is defined by two angles: $`\psi ,\psi [0,\pi ]`$, between the $`x`$-axis and $`𝐭(0)`$ and $`\theta ,\theta [0,2\pi ]`$, between the $`xy`$-plane and the plane spanned by the $`x`$-axis and $`𝐭(0)`$. In this coordinate system we may represent the both rays as follows:

$`𝐫_B(s_1)=(g+s_1\mathrm{cos}\varphi ,s_1\mathrm{sin}\varphi ,0),g|𝐫(L)𝐫(0)|,`$
$`𝐭_B=(\mathrm{cos}\varphi ,\mathrm{sin}\varphi ,0),s_1[0,\mathrm{}],`$
$`𝐫_C(s_2)=(s_2\mathrm{cos}\psi ,s_2\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{cos}\theta ,s_2\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\theta ),`$
$`𝐭_C=(\mathrm{cos}\psi ,\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{cos}\theta ,\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\theta ),s_2[\mathrm{},0].`$
We wish to compute the integral

$`𝒮q={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{(𝐫_B(s_1)𝐫_C(s_2))(𝐭_B(s_1)\times 𝐭_C(s_2))}{|𝐫_B(s_1)𝐫_C(s_2)|^3}}𝑑s_1𝑑s_2=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi }}(𝐭_B\times 𝐭_C){\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{𝐫_B(s_1)𝐫_C(s_2)}{|𝐫_B(s_1)𝐫_C(s_2)|^3}}𝑑s_1𝑑s_2=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g}{2\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{(s_1^2+2ps_1+q^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}𝑑s_1𝑑s_2,`$
where $`pp(s_2)g\mathrm{cos}\varphi s_2(\mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{cos}\varphi +\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\theta )`$, $`q^2q^2(s_2)s_2^22gs_2\mathrm{cos}\psi +g^2`$.

It is easy to perform the first integration:

$`𝒮q={\displaystyle \frac{g}{2\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{s_1+p}{(q^2p^2)\sqrt{s_1^2+2ps_1+q^2}}}|_0^{\mathrm{}}\right)𝑑s_2=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g}{2\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{ds_2}{q(p+q)}}=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{g}{2\pi }}\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta {\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{0}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{s_2^22gs_2\mathrm{cos}\psi +g^2}}}\times `$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{ds_2}{g\mathrm{cos}\varphi s_2(\mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{cos}\varphi +\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\theta )+\sqrt{s_2^22gs_2\mathrm{cos}\psi +g^2}}}.`$
The last integral can also be done and the result may be presented as an algebraic formula which does not depend on $`g`$, naturally. However, the derivation of the final expression involves a complicated algebra and, instead, we prefer to obtain $`𝒮q`$ in a different way.

We can consider the both rays and the straight line connecting them as an (infinite) polygonal line with three links. The writhe of this line, as defined in the previous section, is exactly equal to $`𝒮q`$. Then the squint is essentially proportional to the signed area of the spherical triangle constituted by the geodesics that tie the vertices corresponding to the vectors $`𝐭(0)`$, $`𝐫(L)𝐫(0)`$, and $`𝐭(L)`$.

The triangle has its two sides equal to $`\psi `$ and $`\varphi `$ and the angle between them $`\theta `$. By the side cosine theorem for spherical triangles, we find the third side $`\chi `$ from

$$\mathrm{cos}\chi =\mathrm{cos}\psi \mathrm{cos}\varphi +\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{cos}\theta $$

and the signed area of the triangle can be calculated by the generalized Heron’s formula

$$S=4\nu \mathrm{arctan}\sqrt{\mathrm{tan}\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }}{2}\mathrm{tan}\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }\varphi }{2}\mathrm{tan}\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }\psi }{2}\mathrm{tan}\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }\chi }{2}},$$

where $`\nu =sign((𝐫(0)𝐫(L))(𝐭(0)\times 𝐭(L)))=sign(\mathrm{sin}\psi \mathrm{sin}\varphi \mathrm{sin}\theta )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\frac{1}{2}(\varphi +\psi +\chi )`$.

Then the squint is $`𝒮q=\frac{S}{2\pi }`$.

## 9 Example: helical shapes

In this section we shall be dealing with a regular circular helix: $`𝐫(s)=(\mathrm{cos}as,\mathrm{sin}as,\sqrt{1a^2}s),0a1,0sL`$, $`s`$ is the arc coordinate and $`L`$ the length of the segment. The limiting values of the parameter $`a`$ correspond to a straight line ($`a=0`$) and a circle of the unit radius ($`a=1`$). The curve is periodic with the period $`T=\frac{2\pi }{a}`$. The tangent, normal and binormal vectors are

$$𝐭=(a\mathrm{sin}as,a\mathrm{cos}as,\sqrt{1a^2}),𝐧=(\mathrm{cos}as,\mathrm{sin}as,0),$$

$$𝐛=(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}as,\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{cos}as,a),$$

and $`\kappa =a^2,\tau =a\sqrt{1a^2}`$ are the curvature and the torsion, respectively.

The tangent indicatrix of the helix is a circular arc on $`𝐒^2`$ of radius $`a`$.

### 9.1 The writhe of an arbitrary segment of the helix

We now illustrate the above developed approach by applying Eq. (28) to the helix. We need to calculate the twist first. The normal $`𝐧(s)`$ is a well-defined continuous vector function and

$$𝒯w(L)=𝒯w_F(L)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}\tau 𝑑s=\frac{L}{2\pi }a\sqrt{1a^2}.$$
(49)
The second step is to calculate the angles $`\gamma _1`$ and $`\gamma _0`$. To this purpose, we find the tangent, normal and binormal vectors at the beginning ($`s=0`$) and at the end ($`s=L`$) points of the segment:

$$𝐭_0=(0,a,\sqrt{1a^2}),𝐧_0=(1,0,0),𝐛_0=(0,\sqrt{1a^2},a),$$

$$𝐭_1=(a\mathrm{sin}aL,a\mathrm{cos}aL,\sqrt{1a^2}),𝐧_1=(\mathrm{cos}aL,\mathrm{sin}aL,0),$$

$$𝐛_1=(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}aL,\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{cos}aL,a).$$

It is possible now to make use of Eqs. (29),(30) to obtain

$`\mathrm{cos}\gamma _1=\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma \mathrm{cos}\frac{aL}{2}}{\sqrt{1a^2\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{aL}{2}}}},`$ (50)
$`\mathrm{sin}\gamma _1=\mathrm{sin}\gamma _0={\displaystyle \frac{\sigma \sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}\frac{aL}{2}}{\sqrt{1a^2\mathrm{sin}^2\frac{aL}{2}}}},`$ (51)
where $`\sigma =sign\mathrm{sin}\frac{aL}{2}`$. Eqs. (50),(51) imply $`\gamma _1=\gamma _0`$ and $`\mathrm{tan}\gamma _1=\mathrm{tan}\gamma _0=\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{tan}\frac{aL}{2}`$.

After substitution of these angles and the expression for $`𝒯w`$ from Eq. (49) into Eq. (28) we obtain the fractional part of the writhe

$$𝒲r(L)=\frac{1}{\pi }[\mathrm{arctan}(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}\frac{aL}{2},\mathrm{cos}\frac{aL}{2})\frac{L}{2}a\sqrt{1a^2}]mod1.$$

We denote by $`z=\mathrm{arctan}(x,y)`$ a function such that $`\mathrm{sin}z=\frac{x}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}`$, $`\mathrm{cos}z=\frac{y}{\sqrt{x^2+y^2}}`$, $`\pi <z\pi `$.

Since the writhe of the helix should be continuous, we may rewrite the last equation in the form

$`𝒲r(L)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\pi }}\left[\mathrm{arctan}(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}{\displaystyle \frac{aL}{2}},\mathrm{cos}{\displaystyle \frac{aL}{2}}){\displaystyle \frac{L}{2}}a\sqrt{1a^2}\right]+`$
$`+2round\left({\displaystyle \frac{aL}{4\pi }}\right),`$ (52)
where $`round(x)`$ is a function that gives an integer nearest to $`x`$.

The writhe $`𝒲r`$ as a function of the arclength $`L`$ normalized on the period $`T`$ is presented in Fig. 8 for three different values of the parameter $`a`$.

We may use Eq. (52) to compute the writhe for the particular lengths $`L=\frac{\pi m}{a}`$ ($`m`$ is the number of half-periods):

$$𝒲r\left(\frac{mT}{2}\right)=\frac{m}{2}(1\sqrt{1a^2})$$
(53)
(cf. ).

In the limiting case $`a0`$, Eq. (52) produces $`𝒲r0`$ as it should be for a straight line. Another limiting value of the parameter is $`1`$: as $`a1`$, the helix approaches a circle $`𝐫(s)=(\mathrm{cos}s,\mathrm{sin}s,0)`$, covered $`L/2\pi `$ times. Then Eq. (52) gives $`𝒲rround\left(\frac{L}{2\pi }\right)`$.

### 9.2 The writhe by the double integral

We wish to make use of the double integral formula (see Eq. (4)) in order to compute the writhe of the infinite helix by an alternative means. We take a helix $`A`$ with $`2M`$ turns, $`M1`$ being integer, and close it as described above with the planar curve $`C`$. (We could equally take an odd number of turns, but the even number facilitates the algebraic manipulations.) We can build $`C`$ as a union of three fragments: $`C=C_1+C_2+C_3`$. All the fragments lie in the plane $`x=1`$. $`C_1`$ starts at the end of the helix in the point $`(1,0,MT\sqrt{1a^2})`$ and it has the initial tangent $`(0,a,\sqrt{1a^2})`$. Denote its length by $`L_1`$ and let it end at the point $`(1,g,MT\sqrt{1a^2})`$, $`g=const`$, $`g<L_1`$, such that the whole curve is convex and it lies in the half-plane $`x=1,zMT\sqrt{1a^2}`$. The end tangent vector is $`(0,0,1)`$.

The fragment $`C_2`$ is simply a straight line $`𝐫_2(\sigma ):(1,g,\sigma )`$, $`\sigma [MT`$ $`\sqrt{1a^2},MT\sqrt{1a^2}]`$.

The last part $`C_3`$ is similar to $`C_1`$. It begins in the point $`(1,g,MT`$ $`\sqrt{1a^2})`$ with the tangent $`(0,0,1)`$ and ends exactly in the beginning of the helix $`(1,0,MT\sqrt{1a^2})`$ having the tangent $`(0,a,\sqrt{1a^2})`$. The convex curve $`C_3`$ has the length $`L_3`$ and it belongs to the half-plane $`x=1,zMT\sqrt{1a^2}`$.

It makes no sense to try to get the writhe for the infinitely lengthy helix. Instead, we consider the writhe per period defined as

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2MT}\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{A+C}{}\underset{A+C}{}I_{𝒲r}(s,\sigma )𝑑s𝑑\sigma ,$$
(54)
where

$$I_{𝒲r}(s,\sigma )=\frac{(𝐫(s)𝐫(\sigma ))(𝐭(s)\times 𝐭(\sigma ))}{|𝐫(s)𝐫(\sigma )|^3}.$$
(55)
In Eq. (54), we imply that the curves $`C_1`$ and $`C_3`$ remain unchanged as $`M`$ varies and only the length of the straight line fragment $`C_2`$ increases appropriately with $`M`$ growing. Then it may be shown that the right-hand side of Eq. (54) depends on the shape of neither $`C_1`$ nor $`C_3`$.

The double integral in Eq. (54) may be represented as a sum

$$\underset{A+C}{}\underset{A+C}{}=\underset{A}{}\underset{A}{}+2\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{A}{}\underset{C_i}{}$$

(we took into account that $`\underset{A}{}\underset{C_i}{}=\underset{C_i}{}\underset{A}{},i=1,2,3`$, and $`\underset{C_i}{}\underset{C_j}{}=0,i,j=1,2,3`$, since $`I_{𝒲r}0`$ at every point).

Now consider the mixed integral over $`A`$ and $`C_1`$. We split it into two parts

$$\underset{A}{}\underset{C_1}{}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s=\underset{MT}{\overset{(M1)T}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{L_1}{}}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s+\underset{(M1)T}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{L_1}{}}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s.$$
(56)
The second integral in Eq. (56) is taken over two finite fragments of a smooth curve and its value is finite, too, and it does not depend on $`M`$. As to the first integral in Eq. (56), we can estimate its numerator

$`|(𝐫(s)𝐫_1(\sigma ))(𝐭(s)\times 𝐭_1(\sigma ))|`$
$`\sqrt{(L_1+2)^2+(L_1+\sqrt{1a^2}(MTs))^2}`$
$`2(L_1+1)+\sqrt{1a^2}(MTs)`$
and the denominator

$$|𝐫(s)𝐫_1(\sigma ))|^3(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}(MTs)^3.$$

Then

$`\left|{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{(M1)T}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{L_1}{}}}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s\right|L_1{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{(M1)T}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2(L_1+1)+\sqrt{1a^2}(MTs)}{(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}(MTs)^3}}𝑑s=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{L_1}{(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{T}{\overset{2MT}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{2(L_1+1)+\sqrt{1a^2}\varsigma }{\varsigma ^3}}𝑑\varsigma =`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{L_1}{(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}\left[(L_1+1)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{T^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4M^2T^2}}\right)+\sqrt{1a^2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{T}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2MT}}\right)\right]`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{L_1}{(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{L_1+1}{T^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1a^2}}{T}}\right).`$
Thus, we have shown that the mixed integral over $`A`$ and $`C_1`$ is bounded uniformly with respect to $`M`$. The same property for the integral over $`A`$ and $`C_3`$ can be proved similarly. We now deal with the third mixed integral over $`A`$ and $`C_2`$. It may be explicitly written as

$$a\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{MT\sqrt{1a^2}}{\overset{MT\sqrt{1a^2}}{}}\frac{1\mathrm{cos}asg\mathrm{sin}as}{(2+g^22\mathrm{cos}as2g\mathrm{sin}as+(\sqrt{1a^2}s+\sigma )^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s.$$

Since we are interested in obtaining the limit of the integral as $`M\mathrm{}`$, we can consider

$`I_2a{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}}(1\mathrm{cos}asg\mathrm{sin}as)\times `$
$`\times \left({\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{d\sigma }{(2+g^22\mathrm{cos}as2g\mathrm{sin}as+(\sqrt{1a^2}s+\sigma )^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}}\right)ds.`$
It is easy to check that

$$\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\frac{d\xi }{(P+(Q+\xi )^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}=\frac{2}{P},P>0.$$

Therefore,

$$I_2=2a\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\frac{1\mathrm{cos}asg\mathrm{sin}as}{2+g^22\mathrm{cos}as2g\mathrm{sin}as}𝑑s.$$

The last integral may be explicitly computed

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1\mathrm{cos}asg\mathrm{sin}as}{2+g^22\mathrm{cos}as2g\mathrm{sin}as}𝑑s}=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{s}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}\mathrm{arctan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{g^2}}((4+g^2)\mathrm{tan}{\displaystyle \frac{as}{2}}2g)\right){\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{a}}round\left({\displaystyle \frac{as}{2\pi }}\right).`$
It is periodic in $`s`$ with the period $`T`$ and, since

$$\left|\frac{s}{2}\frac{\pi }{a}round\left(\frac{as}{2\pi }\right)\right|\frac{\pi }{2a}$$

and

$$\left|\frac{1}{a}\mathrm{arctan}\left(\frac{1}{g^2}((4+g^2)\mathrm{tan}\frac{as}{2}2g)\right)\right|\frac{\pi }{2a},$$

we get $`|I_2|4\pi `$.

Summing up, we have proved that only double integration over the infinite helix $`A`$ may be retained in Eq. (54)

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2MT}\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}I_{𝒲r}(s,\sigma )𝑑s𝑑\sigma .$$
(57)
For the problem at hand, the integrand $`I_{𝒲r}`$ may be reduced to

$`I_{𝒲r}(s,\sigma )=a\sqrt{1a^2}\times `$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma ))\left[2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma ))a(s\sigma )\mathrm{cos}(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma ))\right]}{\left[4\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma ))+(1a^2)(s\sigma )^2\right]^{\frac{3}{2}}}}.`$
It depends only on the difference of the arc coordinates due to the translation invariance along the helix curve. It is natural to make the change of variables $`(s,\sigma )(u,v),u=s\sigma ,v=s+\sigma `$ and to consider

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r}(u,v)=\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r}(u)=a\sqrt{1a^2}\frac{2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}u)\left[2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}u)au\mathrm{cos}(\frac{a}{2}u)\right]}{\left[4\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{a}{2}u)+(1a^2)u^2\right]^{\frac{3}{2}}}.$$

For any fragment of the helix which length equals the period, the writhe is the same and it may be found as

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2MT}\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}𝑑v\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r}(u)𝑑u=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r}(u)𝑑u.$$
(58)
The justification of why Eq. (57) is equivalent to Eq. (58) follows from Lemma 2 (see Appendix B) applied for $`\phi =0`$.

Consider an integral

$$I_1=\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w,J_0(w)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}w(\mathrm{sin}ww\mathrm{cos}w)}{(\mathrm{sin}^2w+\lambda w^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}},$$

where $`\lambda =const,\lambda >0`$ is a parameter; we put $`\lambda =\frac{1a^2}{a^2}`$.

For small $`w`$,

$$J_0(w)=\frac{1}{3}\frac{|w|}{(1+\lambda )^{\frac{3}{2}}}+𝒪(w^3)=\frac{a^3}{3}|w|+𝒪(w^3).$$
(59)
The integral $`I_1`$ may be represented as a sum

$$I_1=\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{ϵ}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w+\underset{ϵ}{\overset{ϵ}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w+\underset{ϵ}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w=2\underset{ϵ}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w+\underset{ϵ}{\overset{ϵ}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w,$$

where $`ϵ>0`$ is small.

In view of Eq. (59),

$$\underset{ϵ0}{lim}\underset{ϵ}{\overset{ϵ}{}}J_0(w)𝑑w=0$$

and we get

$`I_1=2\underset{ϵ0}{lim}{\displaystyle \underset{ϵ}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}J_0(w)𝑑w=2\underset{ϵ0}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{w}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2w+\lambda w^2}}}|_ϵ^{\mathrm{}}=`$
$`=2\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda +1}}}\right)=2{\displaystyle \frac{a(1\sqrt{1a^2})}{\sqrt{1a^2}}}.`$
Returning to Eq. (58) and making the identification $`w=\frac{a}{2}u`$, we obtain

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\frac{a(1\sqrt{1a^2})}{2\pi }=\frac{𝒲r(T)}{T}.$$
(60)
The last expression agrees with the value of the writhe for $`m=2`$ (Eq. (53)).

We remark that the computation of the writhe (and twist) of the helix is a favourite example of an application of the first Fuller theorem (e.g., see ) though the author has not come across the direct usage of the double integral formula in the literature. It is evident, that the last approach is much more tedious, but it seems to be instructive to see it at work. To complete the picture, we show in the next section how to calculate the same quantity by means of the Fuller second theorem.

### 9.3 The writhe by the Fuller second theorem

We consider two curves. The first one is a segment of a straight line $`A_0:𝐫_0=(1,0,\sqrt{1a^2}s)`$ and the second is one period of the helix $`A_1:𝐫_1=(\mathrm{cos}as,\mathrm{sin}as,\sqrt{1a^2}s)`$, the same as above. The common parameter $`s`$ varies from $`0`$ to $`T=\frac{2\pi }{a}`$ (note that it is not the arclength coordinate for $`A_0`$).

The Fuller second theorem is only applicable to closed curves, so we have to close both our segments. We shall do it in accordance with the procedure described above for periodic curves. Namely, we close $`A_0`$ and $`A_1`$ each with a curve lying in the plane $`x=1`$ and consisting of three fragments. The closure of $`A_0`$ contains the parts:

1) $`C_{01}`$, a semicircle of radius $`R_0>0`$ with the tangent $`𝐭_{01}=(0,\mathrm{sin}\varphi `$, $`\mathrm{cos}\varphi )`$, $`0\varphi \pi ,\varphi `$ is a new parameter;

2) $`C_{02}`$, a segment of a straight line parallel to $`A_0`$: $`𝐫_{02}=(1,2R_0`$, $`\sqrt{1a^2}`$ $`(T\theta ))`$, $`\theta [0,T]`$;

3) $`C_{03}`$, a semicircle of radius $`R_0`$ with the tangent $`𝐭_{03}=(0,\mathrm{sin}\varphi ,\mathrm{cos}\varphi )`$, $`\pi \varphi 2\pi `$.

The closing curve for the helix is built as follows:

1) $`C_{11}`$, a semicircle of radius $`R_1>\pi \sqrt{1a^2}`$ with the tangent $`𝐭_{11}=(0`$,$`\mathrm{sin}(\varphi `$ $`+\varphi _0),\mathrm{cos}(\varphi +\varphi _0)),0\varphi \pi ,\varphi _0`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{sin}\varphi _0=a,\mathrm{cos}\varphi _0=\sqrt{1a^2}`$;

2) $`C_{12}`$, a segment of a straight line: $`𝐫_{12}=(1,a(a^21)\theta +2R_1\sqrt{1a^2},`$ $`(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}\theta +\frac{2\pi }{a}\sqrt{1a^2}2R_1a),\theta [0,T]`$;

3) $`C_{13}`$, a semicircle of radius $`R_2=R_1\pi \sqrt{1a^2}`$ with the tangent $`𝐭_{13}=(0,\mathrm{sin}(\varphi +\varphi _0),\mathrm{cos}(\varphi +\varphi _0)),\pi \varphi 2\pi `$.

At the joining points the tangent vector is not differentiable, but we may always make the closing curves smoother by small variations in the vicinities of the joining points. These modifications influence the result in no way.

The integrand in Eq. (7) vanishes on the straight line segments of the closure and the rest two integrals over the semicircles cancel each other because $`𝐭_{01}(\varphi )=𝐭_{03}(\varphi +\pi )`$ and $`𝐭_{11}(\varphi )=𝐭_{13}(\varphi +\pi )`$ for $`0\varphi \pi `$.

We now may forget about the closing segments and take the only integral over the initial range of parameter $`s[0,T]`$. The straightforward calculations yield the expression for the integrand function $`\frac{a^3}{1+\sqrt{1a^2}}=a(1\sqrt{1a^2})`$ and we get again Eq. (60) for the writhe per period. In contrast to the previous section where we dealt with the infinite helix, we now have obtained the same formula by considering only one helical period.

### 9.4 A double helix

The procedure of the calculation of the writhe of a helix is very similar to that for a double helical shape. The helix is assumed to be regular, circular and closed at both ends in the same manner as it is described above for open curves. The difference is that each of the two closing curves joins two different helices.

In this section we show how to obtain the limiting value of the writhe per turn when the integer number of turns tends to infinity. We include into our consideration the case when the double helix is not symmetric with respect to the central axis (as it takes place in the B-form of DNA, for example). Each of the two helical curves will be called a strand.

The first strand is described as the helix $`D_0:𝐫_1(s_1)=(\mathrm{cos}as_1`$, $`\mathrm{sin}as_1`$, $`\sqrt{1a^2}s_1),0a1,S_0s_1S_1`$, $`s_1`$ is the arc coordinate and $`L=S_1S_0`$ the length of the segment (cf. the beginning of Section 9). The second strand may be obtained from $`D_0`$ by rotation through a (constant) offset angle $`2\phi `$ around the central axis: $`D_2:𝐫_2(s_2)=(\mathrm{cos}(as_2+2\phi ),\mathrm{sin}(as_2+2\phi ),\sqrt{1a^2}s_2),S_0s_2S_1`$, $`s_2`$ is the arclength. (Note that it is convenient to choose the same orientation for the parametrization of both curves so that $`D_2`$ is oriented against $`D_0`$.)

Let the double helix have $`2M`$ turns, $`M`$ integer (i.e. $`L=2MT`$, $`T=\frac{2\pi }{a}`$), and $`S_1=MT=S_0`$. It is closed with two loops $`D_1`$ and $`D_3`$ of finite lengths $`L_1`$ and $`L_3`$, respectively. We assume that the loop $`D_1`$ is entirely contained in the cylinder $`x_1^2+y_1^22,z_1\sqrt{1a^2}MT`$ and $`D_3\{x_3^2+y_3^22,z_3\sqrt{1a^2}MT\}`$. The whole closed double helix may be represented as the sum $`D=D_0+D_1+D_2+D_3`$.

We wish to compute the writhe per period

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2L+L_1+L_3}\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{D}{}\underset{D}{}I_{𝒲r}(s,\sigma )𝑑s𝑑\sigma .$$
(61)
where $`I_{𝒲r}(s,\sigma )`$ is as in Eq. (55).

The double integral in Eq. (61) may be represented as the sum

$$\underset{D}{}\underset{D}{}=\underset{i,j=0}{\overset{3}{}}\underset{D_i}{}\underset{D_j}{}.$$

Neither the integral $`\underset{D_1}{}\underset{D_1}{}`$ nor $`\underset{D_3}{}\underset{D_3}{}`$ depends on $`M`$, hence they do not affect the limit in Eq. (61). Consider the mixed integral over $`D_0`$ and $`D_1`$. We can split it similarly as it was done for the single helix (cf. Eq. (56)

$$\underset{D_0}{}\underset{D_1}{}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s=\underset{MT}{\overset{(M1)T}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{L_1}{}}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s+\underset{(M1)T}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{L_1}{}}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s.$$
(62)
The last double integral in Eq. (62) exists and does not depend on $`M`$. As to the first integral in the right-hand side of Eq. (62), we can estimate its numerator

$`|(𝐫_0(s)𝐫_1(\sigma ))(𝐭_0(s)\times 𝐭_1(\sigma ))|`$
$`\sqrt{(1+2)^2+(L_1/2+\sqrt{1a^2}(MTs))^2}3+L_1/2+\sqrt{1a^2}(MTs)`$
and the denominator

$$|𝐫_0(s)𝐫_1(\sigma ))|^3(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}(MTs)^3.$$

Then it is easy to check that

$$\left|\underset{MT}{\overset{(M1)T}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{L_1}{}}I_{𝒲r}𝑑\sigma 𝑑s\right|\frac{L_1}{(1a^2)^{\frac{3}{2}}}\left(\frac{L_1+6}{4T^2}+\frac{\sqrt{1a^2}}{T}\right).$$

We can conclude that the mixed integral over $`D_0`$ and $`D_1`$ is bounded uniformly with respect to $`M`$. The same is true for the pairs $`(D_3,D_0)`$, $`(D_1,D_2)`$, $`(D_2,D_3)`$ and, of course, for $`(D_1,D_3)`$. Now we see that the only pairs that count in Eq. (61) are those involving both strands. Note that the integral $`\underset{D_0}{}\underset{D_0}{}=\underset{D_2}{}\underset{D_2}{}`$ was already estimated as $`\underset{A}{}\underset{A}{}`$ (see Section 9.2).

The last integral to be computed is $`\underset{D_0}{}\underset{D_2}{}=\underset{D_0}{}\underset{D_2}{}`$. We apply Lemma 2 (see Appendix B) to obtain its limiting value which, according to Eq. (65), will be

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)𝑑u=`$
$`={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1a^2}}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{w}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2(w\phi )+\lambda w^2}}}|_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}={\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1a^2}}{2\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{\lambda }}}={\displaystyle \frac{a}{2\pi }},`$
$`\phi 0,w={\displaystyle \frac{au}{2}},\lambda ={\displaystyle \frac{1a^2}{a^2}}.`$
Note that the result does not depend on $`\phi `$.

Adding the above value to Eq. (60 ) (which is actually the limiting value of the double integral over the same helix), we finally obtain the writhe per period for the double helix

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\frac{a\sqrt{1a^2}}{2\pi }.$$
(63)
It is necessary to clarify that the above formula gives the writhe normalized on the whole length of both strands. Note also the negative sign of the writhe for the right-handed ($`a>0`$) double helix.

The symmetric case of $`2\phi =\pi `$ was considered in , where essentially the same formula for writhe was found.

We remark that the writhe for $`n`$-strand helical shapes ($`n3`$) may be easily computed on the basis of the results derived for the single and double helices.

### 9.5 The writhe of the double helix of arbitrary length

Here we continue dealing with the non-symmetric double helix, but now we consider the general case when the helix does not need to have an integer number of turns. The length of each strand is the same and denoted by $`L`$.

We apply the equation for writhe that was found earlier for the sequence of disjoint fragments (Section 5.2). In the double helix case, we have only two pieces: $`A_1D_0`$ and $`A_2D_2`$, they are defined in the previous section, but now we set $`S_0=0`$ and $`S_1=L`$. The twist of each helix is the same

$$𝒯w_1=𝒯w_2=\frac{L}{2\pi }a\sqrt{1a^2}.$$

(cf. Eq. (49 )).

Now compute the vectors of the Frenet bases at all four ending points $`A_0^{(1)}`$, $`A_1^{(1)}`$, $`A_0^{(2)}`$, $`A_1^{(2)}`$:

$`𝐭_{A0}^{(1)}=(0,a,\sqrt{1a^2}),𝐧_{A0}^{(1)}=(1,0,0),𝐛_{A0}^{(1)}=(0,\sqrt{1a^2},a),`$
$`𝐭_{A1}^{(1)}=(a\mathrm{sin}aL,a\mathrm{cos}aL,\sqrt{1a^2}),𝐧_{A1}^{(1)}=(\mathrm{cos}aL,\mathrm{sin}aL,0),`$
$`𝐛_{A1}^{(1)}=(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}aL,\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{cos}aL,a),`$
$`𝐭_{A0}^{(2)}=(a\mathrm{sin}(aL+2\phi ),a\mathrm{cos}(aL+2\phi ),\sqrt{1a^2}),`$
$`𝐧_{A0}^{(2)}=(\mathrm{cos}(aL+2\phi ),\mathrm{sin}(aL+2\phi ),0),`$
$`𝐛_{A0}^{(2)}=(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}(aL+2\phi ),\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{cos}(aL+2\phi ),a),`$
$`𝐭_{A1}^{(2)}=(a\mathrm{sin}2\phi ,a\mathrm{cos}2\phi ,\sqrt{1a^2}),𝐧_{A1}^{(2)}=(\mathrm{cos}2\phi ,\mathrm{sin}2\phi ,0),`$
$`𝐛_{A1}^{(2)}=(\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{sin}2\phi ,\sqrt{1a^2}\mathrm{cos}2\phi ,a).`$
It is easy to see that the angles $`\gamma _0^{(i)}`$, $`\gamma _1^{(i)}`$, $`i=1,2`$, computed with the help of Eqs. (32 ), (33), satisfy the following equations:

$`\mathrm{cos}\gamma _1^{(1)}=\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0^{(1)}=\mathrm{cos}\gamma _1^{(2)}=\mathrm{cos}\gamma _0^{(2)},`$
$`\mathrm{sin}\gamma _1^{(1)}=\mathrm{sin}\gamma _0^{(1)}=\mathrm{sin}\gamma _1^{(2)}=\mathrm{sin}\gamma _0^{(2)},`$
which imply

$$\gamma _1^{(1)}+\gamma _0^{(1)}+\gamma _1^{(2)}+\gamma _0^{(2)}=0mod2\pi $$

and according to Eq. (31) we have

$$𝒲r=\frac{L}{\pi }a\sqrt{1a^2}mod1.$$

This expression is in compliance with the writhe per length for an integer number of turns (Eq. (63)). If we think about the double helix as a continuously growing structure, then it is evident that the last equation gives not only the fractional part of $`𝒲r`$, but its exact value as function of one strand length.

Let $`h`$ be the length of the axis of the double helix, $`h=L\sqrt{1a^2}`$. Then

$$𝒲r=\frac{ha}{\pi }$$

We see that the growing double helix delivers an example of a family of curves $`A(h)`$, parametrized with the continuous parameter $`h`$, such that the writhe is a linear function of the length. Clearly, the writhe per (double helix) length is constant. Also, note that the writhe does not depend on the offset angle $`\phi `$ which controls the mutual location of the strands (in terms of DNA we may reformulate the last observation as an invariance property of writhe with respect to the widths of the minor or major grooves).

## 10 Conclusion

We have been concerned with the generalization of the notion of the writhe for an arbitrary space curve and with obtaining effective formulas for its computation. We have analyzed various conditions on the position and orientation of the ends of the fragment in space starting with a periodic curve and finishing at the most common case.

In all cases, an explicit construction of a closed ribbon was carried out. This makes it possible an application of the Călugăreanu-White-Fuller equation to the determination of the writhe. A rule for the calculation of the writhe for a segment which is a union of smaller parts, is obtained. We examined a polygonal line as a special case.

A relation was established between the writhe and the Gauß integral taken over the open fragment. The difference between these two quantities may be represented as three single integrals.

The application of the formulas presented was demonstrated on the examplar curves, including regular single and double helices. In particular, the writhe as a continuous function of arclength is defined for a regular helix. It was shown that a double helix of finite length, with “geodesic” closures at the ends, provides an example of a one-parameter family of curves that realizes the linear dependence of the writhe on the length and the writhe is invariant with respect to the value of the offset between the strands.

In Appendix A, a new derivation of the formula connecting the writhe and the twist for a non-closed ribbon with one continuous edge is given.

## 11 Appendix A: A formula for a non-closed ribbon

The formula, we are about to deduce, relates to a ribbon based on a smooth closed curve but generated by a vector function which has a discontinuity. Such a ribbon may serve as a model to a nicked circular DNA, one strand of which is cleaved.

We will consider a closed smooth non-self-intersecting space curve $`A=𝐫(s):[0,L]^3`$ of class $`C^2`$. We assume for the sake of simplicity that the parameter $`s`$ is the arclength. The smooth closure implies $`𝐫(0)=𝐫(L)`$, $`𝐭_0𝐫^{}(0)=𝐫^{}(L)𝐭_1`$, $`𝐫^{\prime \prime }(0)=𝐫^{\prime \prime }(L)`$. Let the curve $`A`$ be equipped with the continuous vector function $`𝐮(s):[0,L]𝐒^2`$ such that $`𝐮(s)𝐫^{}(s)=0,s[0,L]`$.

In the general case, $`𝐮(0)𝐮(L)`$ and we can define an angle $`\alpha `$ between these two vectors, measured up to modulo $`2\pi `$. This angle is a characteristic of discontinuity by which the ribbon $`(𝐫,𝐮)`$ fails to close (Fig. 9).

Our aim here is to obtain an equation connecting the writhe of the curve $`A`$, its twist and the angle $`\alpha `$.

Consider the tangent indicatrix $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ of the curve $`A`$ on $`𝐒^2`$. It is a closed curve. Choose a great circle plane containing $`𝐭_0=𝐭_1`$. It has at least one common point with the tangent indicatrix. We look for a plane having at least two more intersections with $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. Such a plane almost always exists. Indeed, take a great circle which is tangent to $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ at the initial point with the tangent $`𝐭_0`$. Generically, there is an alternative: either the great circle intersects $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ (the first case) or not (the second one). In the first case, it is enough to rotate the great circle plane about $`𝐭_0`$ through a small angle to provide two additional points of intersections that bifurcate from the initial one. Consider the second case. The whole tangent indicatrix of a *closed* curve may not lie in only one of the two semispheres (see Theorem 1 in ). Then the closedness of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ implies at least two crossings in addition to the common initial point.

We should distinguish the singular case when the tangent indicatrix is itself a great circle. It corresponds to the planar space curve. We shall return to this case later.

For a regular configuration, we can choose two additional points $`P_2:𝐫(s_2)`$ and $`P_3:𝐫(s_3)`$ for which $`𝐭_0+p𝐭_2+q𝐭_3=0`$, $`p,q`$ are real and $`𝐭_2𝐫^{}(s_2)`$, $`𝐭_3𝐫^{}(s_3)`$ (it is easy to show that the points may be always taken such that $`𝐭_2+𝐭_30`$).

The starting point and $`P_2`$ and $`P_3`$ divide the curve $`A`$ into 3 parts, namely, $`A=A_1+A_2+A_3`$, $`A_1:𝐫(s),s[0,s_2]`$, $`A_2:𝐫(s),s[s_2,s_3]`$, $`A_3:𝐫(s),s[s_3,L]`$.

We now are ready to construct another curve by inserting 3 new segments of straight lines between the parts. The new curve $`B`$ consists of 6 fragments

$$D_1:𝐫(0)+\sigma 𝐭_0,\sigma [0,ϵ_1];$$

$$B_1:𝐫(\sigma ϵ_1)+ϵ_1𝐭_0,\sigma [ϵ_1,ϵ_1+s_2];$$

$$D_2:𝐫(s_2)+ϵ_1𝐭_0+(\sigma ϵ_1s_2)𝐭_2,\sigma [ϵ_1+s_2,ϵ_1+s_2+ϵ_2];$$

$$B_2:𝐫(\sigma ϵ_1ϵ_2)+ϵ_1𝐭_0+ϵ_2𝐭_2,\sigma [ϵ_1+ϵ_2+s_2,ϵ_1+ϵ_2+s_3];$$

$$D_3:𝐫(s_3)+ϵ_1𝐭_0+ϵ_2𝐭_2+(\sigma ϵ_1ϵ_2s_3)𝐭_3,\sigma [ϵ_1+ϵ_2+s_3,ϵ_1+ϵ_2+s_3+ϵ_3];$$

$$B_3:𝐫(\sigma ϵ_1ϵ_2ϵ_3)+ϵ_1𝐭_0+ϵ_2𝐭_2+ϵ_3𝐭_3,\sigma [ϵ_1+ϵ_2+ϵ_3+s_3,ϵ_1+ϵ_2+ϵ_3+L].$$

The compound curve $`B(ϵ_1,ϵ_2,ϵ_3)=D_1+B_1+D_2+B_2+D_3+B_3`$ is closed if $`ϵ_1𝐭_0+ϵ_2𝐭_2+ϵ_3𝐭_3=0`$. We put $`ϵ_2=pϵ_1`$ and $`ϵ_3=qϵ_1`$ and choose $`ϵ>0`$ such that $`B(ϵ_1)`$ would have no self-intersections for $`ϵ_1,ϵ_1[0,ϵ]`$. Thus, we have constructed an one-parameter family of closed pulled-out curves $`B(ϵ_1)`$, $`ϵ_1[0,ϵ]`$, $`B(0)=A`$.

The next step is to define ribbons $`(B(ϵ_1),𝐔),ϵ_1(0,ϵ]`$. For the fragments $`B_i,i=1,2,3`$, we keep the same vectors $`𝐔=𝐮`$ as for the respective parts $`A_i,i=1,2,3`$. For the fragments $`D_2`$ and $`D_3`$, $`𝐔=𝐮(s_2)=const`$ and $`𝐔=𝐮(s_3)=const`$, respectively. For the remained fragment $`D_1`$, we define $`𝐔(\sigma ),\sigma [0,ϵ_1]`$ such that $`𝐔(0)=𝐮(L)`$ and $`𝐔(ϵ_1)=𝐮(0)`$:

$$𝐔(\sigma )=𝐮(L)\mathrm{cos}\frac{\alpha }{ϵ_1}\sigma +(𝐭_0\times 𝐮(L))\mathrm{sin}\frac{\alpha }{ϵ_1}\sigma .$$

To find the angle $`\alpha `$ between $`𝐮(0)`$ and $`𝐮(L)`$ we have the relationship

$$𝐮(0)=𝐮(L)\mathrm{cos}\alpha +(𝐭_0\times 𝐮(L))\mathrm{sin}\alpha .$$

The ribbon $`(B(ϵ_1),𝐔)`$ is continuous and the Călugăreanu-White-Fuller formula can be applied to get

$$k_B(ϵ_1)=𝒲r_B(ϵ_1)+𝒯w_B(ϵ_1).$$
(64)
Since we have chosen $`ϵ`$ small enough to exclude self-intersections of the curve (more accurately, we have to require an absence of self-crossings for the whole ribbon), the right-hand side of Eq. (64) does not depend on $`ϵ_1`$.

By the construction, the tangent indicatrix of $`B(ϵ_1)`$ is the same for any $`ϵ_1`$ (namely, it is $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ because $`B(0)=A`$). Therefore, due to the Fuller first theorem (and taking into account the absence of self-intersections), $`𝒲r_B(ϵ_1)=𝒲r_A`$.

The twist of $`B(ϵ_1)`$ may be represented as a sum

$$𝒯w_B(ϵ_1)=𝒯w_{D1}(ϵ_1)+𝒯w_{B1}+𝒯w_{D2}(ϵ_1)+𝒯w_{B2}+𝒯w_{D3}(ϵ_1)+𝒯w_{B3}.$$

Clearly, $`𝒯w_{D2}(ϵ_1)0`$ and $`𝒯w_{D3}(ϵ_1)0`$, because the vector $`𝐔`$ is constant on these straight-line fragments. Further, $`𝒯w_{B1}+𝒯w_{B2}+𝒯w_{B3}=𝒯w_A`$, the twist of the initial non-closed ribbon (which is well defined).

The twist of the remaining part $`D_1`$ may be readily computed

$$𝒯w_{D1}=\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }$$

and it does not depend on $`ϵ_1`$.

We now can rewrite Eq. (64) as

$$k_B=𝒲r_A+𝒯w_A+\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }.$$

We may interpret the last equation as a definition of the linking number for the non-closed ribbon $`A`$ (cf. the last equation in  and Eq. (7.2) in ):

$$k_A=𝒲r_A+𝒯w_A,k_A=k_B\frac{\alpha }{2\pi }.$$

In conclusion, we explain how one has to treat the degenerated case of a planar curve $`A`$. Clearly, two insertions are sufficient then. Indeed, we can choose the second point on $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ as diametrically opposed to the starting one, i.e., $`𝐭_0+𝐭_2=0`$. In other words, we can proceed the same way as in the regular case after putting $`p=1`$ and $`q=0`$. It is evident, that the result will not change.

## 12 Appendix B: Estimation of integrals

In this section two lemmas are proved that are useful for computation of the Gauß integral for regular helices.

Lemma 1. Let

$$J_\theta (w)=\frac{\mathrm{sin}(w\theta )[\mathrm{sin}(w\theta )w\mathrm{cos}(w\theta )]}{[\mathrm{sin}^2(w\theta )+\lambda w^2]^{3/2}},$$

where $`\lambda `$, $`\theta `$ are parameters and $`\lambda >0`$.

Then the integral

$$I_\theta \mathrm{}=\underset{0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}wJ_\theta (w)𝑑w$$

exists.

Consider an integral

$$I_\theta (w_0)=\underset{0}{\overset{w_0}{}}wJ_\theta (w)𝑑w$$

and integrate it by parts using the equality

$$\underset{0}{\overset{w_0}{}}J_\theta (w)𝑑w=\frac{w}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2(w\theta )+\lambda w^2}}.$$

Then

$`I_\theta (w_0)={\displaystyle \frac{w_0^2}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2(w_0\theta )+\lambda w_0^2}}}\widehat{I}(w_0),`$
$`\widehat{I}(w_0)={\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{w_0}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{w}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2(w\theta )+\lambda w^2}}}𝑑w.`$
Now we estimate $`\widehat{I}(w_0)`$ for $`w_0>0`$. On the one hand,

$$\widehat{I}(w_0)<\underset{0}{\overset{w_0}{}}\frac{dw}{\sqrt{\lambda }}=\frac{w_0}{\sqrt{\lambda }}$$

and on the other,

$$\widehat{I}(w_0)>\underset{0}{\overset{w_0}{}}\frac{wdw}{\sqrt{1+\lambda w^2}}=\frac{\sqrt{1+\lambda w_0^2}1}{\lambda }.$$

Therefore, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{w_0^2}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2(w_0\theta )+\lambda w_0^2}}}{\displaystyle \frac{w_0}{\sqrt{\lambda }}}<I_\theta (w_0)<{\displaystyle \frac{w_0^2}{\sqrt{\mathrm{sin}^2(w_0\theta )+\lambda w_0^2}}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{1+\lambda w_0^2}1}{\lambda }}.`$
Letting $`w_0`$ go to the infinity in the last inequality leads to

$$0<I_\theta \mathrm{}=\underset{w_0\mathrm{}}{lim}I_\theta (w_0)<\frac{1}{\lambda }$$

which proves the statement of the lemma.

Lemma 2. Let

$`I_{𝒲r,\phi }(s,\sigma )=a\sqrt{1a^2}\times `$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma )\phi )\left[2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma )\phi )a(s\sigma )\mathrm{cos}(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma )\phi )\right]}{\left[4\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{a}{2}(s\sigma )\phi )+(1a^2)(s\sigma )^2\right]^{\frac{3}{2}}}}.`$
Then

$$\stackrel{~}{𝒲r}(T)=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2MT}\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}I_{𝒲r,\phi }(s,\sigma )𝑑s𝑑\sigma =\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)𝑑u,$$
(65)
where

$$\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)=a\sqrt{1a^2}\frac{2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}u\phi )\left[2\mathrm{sin}(\frac{a}{2}u\phi )au\mathrm{cos}(\frac{a}{2}u\phi )\right]}{\left[4\mathrm{sin}^2(\frac{a}{2}u\phi )+(1a^2)u^2\right]^{\frac{3}{2}}}.$$

First of all, note that $`I_{𝒲r,\phi }(s,\sigma )=I_{𝒲r,\phi }(s,\sigma )`$ (and $`\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)=\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)`$, as well). Next, we make the change of variables $`(s,\sigma )(u,v),u=s\sigma ,v=s+\sigma `$ to obtain

$`{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}}I_{𝒲r,\phi }(s,\sigma )dsd\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)dudv`$ (66)
$`2{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{MT}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{u}{}}}(\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)+\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u))𝑑v𝑑u+`$
$`+2{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{2MT}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{2MTu}{}}}(\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)+\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u))dvdu].`$
Due to Lemma 1,

$$\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{MT}\underset{0}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{0}{\overset{u}{}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\pm \phi }(u)𝑑v𝑑u=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{MT}\underset{0}{\overset{MT}{}}u\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\pm \phi }(u)𝑑u=0.$$

It is also evident that

$`\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{MT}}{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{2MT}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{0}{\overset{2MTu}{}}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\pm \phi }(u)𝑑v𝑑u=`$
$`=\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{MT}}{\displaystyle \underset{MT}{\overset{2MT}{}}}(2MTu)\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\pm \phi }(u)𝑑u=0,`$
because $`\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\pm \phi }(u)=𝒪(u^2)`$ for $`u\mathrm{}`$.

Therefore, we may consider only the limit of the first pair of the integrals in the right-hand side of Eq. (66) which will be

$$\underset{M\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{2MT}\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\underset{MT}{\overset{MT}{}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)𝑑u𝑑v=\frac{1}{4\pi }\underset{\mathrm{}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{~}{I}_{𝒲r,\phi }(u)𝑑u.$$

## Acknowledgements

Most of this work was carried out during the author’s stay at the Institute of Technical Mechanics of the Technical University of Karlsruhe. The support from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is gratefully acknowledged. The author would like to express his thanks to Jens Wittenburg for his hospitality and attention to the work.

The author is also pleased to thank John Maddocks for helpful discussions and his support.