Symmetry detection of rational space curves from their curvature and torsion

Abstract

We present a novel, deterministic, and efficient method to detect whether a given rational space curve is symmetric. By using well-known differential invariants of space curves, namely the curvature and torsion, the method is significantly faster, simpler, and more general than an earlier method addressing a similar problem (Alcázar et al., 2014b). To support this claim, we present an analysis of the arithmetic complexity of the algorithm and timings from an implementation in Sage.