Jacobi fields vanishing at their initial point

ID: jacobi-fields-vanishing-at-their-initial-point

For , every Jacobi field with is uniquely of the form
Differentiate the geodesic variation in to obtain the formula. Uniqueness of the Jacobi equation with prescribed initial value and derivative shows that all such fields are obtained. A nontrivial field vanishing at therefore corresponds to a nonzero vector in the kernel of , giving the conjugate point criterion.

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