Symmetric critical knots for O'Hara's energies

Abstract

We prove the existence of symmetric critical torus knots for O'Hara's knot energy family $E_\alpha$, $\alpha\in (2,3)$ using Palais' classic principle of symmetric criticality. It turns out that in every torus knot class there are at least two smooth $E_\alpha$-critical knots, which supports experimental observations using numerical gradient flows.