Problem:
Let be a fixed circle with radius , and let be a fixed chord of such that . The locus of the incenter of as varies along the circumference of bounds a region in the plane. Find the area of .
, 2014
Solution
Solution:
Answer:
We will make use of the following lemmas.
Lemma 1: If is a triangle with incenter , then .
Proof: Consider triangle . Since is the intersection of the angle bisectors, and . It follows that
Lemma 2: If is on major arc , then the circumcenter of is the midpoint of minor arc , and vice-versa.
Proof: Let be the midpoint of minor arc . It suffices to show that , since . This follows from Lemma 1 and the fact that . The other case is similar.
Let be the center of . Since has the same length as a radius, is equilateral. We now break the problem into cases depending on the location of .
Case 1: If is on major arc , then by inscribed angles. If is the midpoint of minor arc , then . Therefore, if is the incenter of , then traces out a circular segment bounded by with central angle , on the same side of as .
Case 2: A similar analysis shows that traces out a circular segment bounded by with central angle , on the other side of .
The area of a circular segment of angle (in radians) is given by , where is the radius of the circular segment. By the Law of Cosines, since , we also have that . Computation now gives the desired answer.