Length-minimizing level curves via calibrations

Abstract

We present an elementary criterion to show the length-minimizing property of geodesics for a large class of conformal metrics. In particular, we prove the length-minimizing property of level curves of harmonic functions and the length-minimizing property of a family of the conic sections with the eccentricity $\varepsilon$ in the upper half plane endowed with the conformal metric $ \left( {\varepsilon}^{2} + \frac{1}{\;{y^2} \;} \right) \left(dx^{2} + dy^{2} \right)$.