Polygons with prescribed edge slopes: configuration space and extremal points of perimeter

We describe the configuration space S of polygons with prescribed edge slopes, and study the perimeter P as a Morse function on S. We characterize critical points of P (these are tangential polygons) and compute their Morse indices. This setup is motivated by a number of results about critical points and Morse indices of the oriented area function defined on the configuration space of polygons with prescribed edge lengths (flexible polygons). As a by-product, we present an independent computation of the Morse index of the area function (obtained earlier by Panina and Zhukova).