On the geometry of subsets of positive reach (Q704818): Difference between revisions

It is shown that a compact subset of a smooth Riemannian manifold with positive reach [\textit{H. Federer}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 93, 418--491 (1959; Zbl 0089.38402)] cannot be curved too much, namely has an upper curvature bound w.r.t. the inner metric. In fact, the author proves a more general theorem on subsets of metric spaces using the language of \(\mathrm{CAT}(\kappa) \)-spaces as introduced by \textit{M. Gromov} in honor of E. Cartan, A. D. Alexandrov, and A. Toponogov. By a \(\mathrm{CAT}(\kappa)\)-space is meant a complete metric space in which all points with distance at most \(\pi/\sqrt{\kappa}\) are connected by a geodesic and such that triangles are not thicker than triangles in the two-dimensional model space of constant curvature \(\kappa\). Much more details on these spaces can be found in the book [\textit{M. Bridson} and \textit{A. Haefliger}, Metric spaces of non-positive curvature (Grundlehren der Mathematischen Wissenschaften. 319. Berlin: Springer) (1999; Zbl 0988.53001)]. So the author's more general result sounds as follows: Let \(X\) be a space with an upper curvature bound \(\kappa\). Let \(Z\) be a \((C,2,\rho)\)-embedded subset of \(X\). Then \(Z\) with respect to its inner metric is a CAT\((k) \)-space with \(k = k(C,\kappa,\rho)\).