A new variant of the Schwarz-Pick-Ahlfors lemma (Q1963826)

In his very interesting paper, Notices Am. Math. Soc. 46, 868-873 (1999; Zbl 0931.12666), the author discussed a philosophy of Ahlfors-type generalizations of the Schwarz-Pick Theorem: the more negative the curvature in the image domain, the more a holomorphic map will shrink distances and curve lengths. This apparently reverses a standard comparison theorem in Riemannian geometry. He outlined a heuristic argument that suggests that a pointwise curvature inequality between geodesic disks implies shrinkage in the image. He stated the ``General Finite Shrinking Lemma'' (GFSL) and referred for the details of the proof to the paper under review. GFSL: Let \(\widehat D\) be a geodesic disk of radius \(\rho_1\) with respect to a metric \(d\widehat s^2\), which is assumed to be circularly symmetric. Let \(f\) be a holomorphic map of \(\widehat D\) into a geodesic disk \(D\) of radius \(\rho_2\) on a surface \(S\), with \(D\) centered at the image under \(f\) of the center of \(\widehat D\). If \(\rho_2 \leq \rho_1\), and if the curvatures satisfy \(K(\rho,\theta)\leq\widehat K(\widehat \rho)\) for \(\rho= \widehat\rho\), then \(\rho(f(P)) \leq\widehat \rho(P)\) for all \(P\) in \(D\). The same proof yields a substitute result even without the hypothesis that \(\rho_2\leq \rho_1\).