The Hadamard-Cartan theorem in locally convex metric spaces (Q2639360): Difference between revisions

\textit{M. Gromov} [Hyperbolic manifolds, groups and actions, Ann. Math. Stud. 97, 183-213 (1981; Zbl 0467.53035)] generalized the Hadamard-Cartan theorem from Riemannian manifolds of non-positive sectional curvature to a wider class of metric space in which the notion of sectional curvature is not introduced (see below). A metric space is said to be geodesic if it contains a shortest curve between any two points, and such a geodesic space is locally convex if every point has a neighborhood such that the distance d(\(\alpha\) (t),\(\beta\) (t)), (t\(\in [0,1])\), is convex for any two geodesics \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) in the neighborhood. Then it can be proven that a locally convex, complete geodesic space has no conjugate points, and this fact fits into the Aleksandrov theory of spaces of curvature K bounded above, namely, the following theorem holds: a complete geodesic space of curvature bounded above by \(K>0\) has no conjugate points along geodesics of length less than \(\pi\) /\(\sqrt{K}\). These two theorems enable to provide a complete proof to the above mentioned Gromov's theorem: a simply connected, complete, locally convex, geodesic space is globally convex, and hence any two points can be joined by a unique geodesic.