Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2023/ib/paper-3/12e/iii/solution

The tangent plane
cuts the hyperboloid in
so its intersection is the pair of straight lines
Their accelerations vanish, hence are normal to the surface, so both lines are geodesics. Their tangent vectors at their intersection are and , whose inner product is zero. They therefore intersect at a right angle, giving the second case of plane-section geodesics of the unit one-sheet hyperboloid.
There are also geodesics entirely contained in . In the coordinates
the metric is
For a unit-speed geodesic, the Clairaut first integral for a surface of revolution is , and the constant-speed equation becomes
Choose and initial height . The geodesic initially tangent to the parallel has , and the displayed identity prevents it from entering . Since the parallel at is not itself a geodesic, the curve turns there and otherwise has . Hence it remains entirely in ; this is a geodesic trapped in one half of the unit one-sheet hyperboloid.
Finally, the waist
is a geodesic and is preserved setwise by every isometry of the hyperboloid. Indeed, its Gaussian curvature is
The value occurs exactly at . Since Gaussian curvature is intrinsic and therefore preserved by isometries, every isometry preserves the waist. Thus the answer to the final question is also yes, with the isometry-invariant waist geodesic of the unit one-sheet hyperboloid as an example.
Figure 1. . Blue meridians are disjoint geodesics in the plane y equals zero, red ruling lines are geodesics meeting orthogonally in the tangent plane x equals one, and the purple waist is an isometry-invariant geodesic.

New to topics? Read the docs here!