The logarithmic spiral: A counterexample to the \(K=2\) conjecture (Q2387156): Difference between revisions

Let \(\Omega\) be an open simply connected subset of the complex plane \({\mathbb C}\) with \(\Omega\not={\mathbb C}\), let \(X=S^2\setminus \Omega\) be the complement of \(\Omega\) in the Riemann sphere \(S^2\) and let \({\mathcal {CH}}(X)\) be the hyperbolic convex hull of \(X\) in hyperbolic 3-space \({\mathbb H}^3\). The relative boundary \(\partial {\mathcal {CH}}(X)\subset {\mathbb H}^3\) faces \(\Omega\) and is called the dome of \(\Omega\). It is denoted by \(\text{Dome}(\Omega)\). The motivation for studying such objects comes from the work of Thurston, and the first important result that Thurston proved in that direction asserts that there is an isometry between the path metric on \(\text{Dome}(\Omega)\) induced from its inclusion in hyperbolic space \({\mathbb H}^3\), and the disk \({\mathbb D}^2\) equipped with its hyperbolic metric. Another important result in this theory, which is due to Sullivan and Epstein-Marden, states that there exists \(K>1\) and a \(K\)-quasiconformal map \(\Psi:\Omega\to\text{Dome}(\Omega)\) which extends continuously to the identity on the common boundary \(\partial \Omega\). In the paper under review, the authors study the case where \(X\) is a certain logarithmic spiral, and they provide with this example a counterexample to a conjecture (known as the ``\(K=2\)-conjecture'') which was attributed to Thurston and Sullivan, stating that in the result of Sullivan-Marden-Epstein stated above, the best quasiconformal constant is \(K=K(\Omega)=2\). In the case where \(X\) is the logarithmic spiral studied here, the authors show that \(K(\Omega)>2.1\). They deduce that the best constant is also greater that 2.1 in the quasifuchsian case with \(\Omega\) one of the domains of discontinuity and the quotient of \(\Omega\) by the group is compact. They also deduce an example of an \(\Omega\) with boundary a nonsingular real-analytic curve and \(K\Omega)>2.1\). Another result obtained in this paper is that the average long range bending of the convex hull boundary associated to a certain logarithmic spiral is approximately \(.98\pi/2\), which is substantially larger than that of any of the previously known examples.