Isoperimetric inequalities in Riemann surfaces of infinite type (Q1125262)

The purpose of this paper is to study properties of planar Riemann surfaces from the point of view of hyperbolic geometry. The basic object of study here is an isoperimetric inequality of hyperbolic type; the questions the authors consider concern the validity of this inequality for planar surface generally of infinite type. They remark that the inequality is equivalent to the property \(\delta(\Gamma)< 1\) where \(\delta(\Gamma)\) denotes the exponent of convergnece of the uniformizing Fuchsian group \(\Gamma\). Moreover no purely Euclidean criterion is known for this. However the authors give criteria in terms of conformal invariants. Their analysis is in two stages -- first they study the complement of a countable subset of a hyperbolic Riemann surface. Here they can use a fairly general method to give a criterion. They then investigate the case of Denjoy domains, that is, the complements of the Riemann sphere by a subset of \(\mathbb{R}\cup \{\infty\}\). Here they can give a much more concrete criterion, again in terms of conformal invariants and the nature of the isolated points of the complement. The results involve a careful comparison of the two geometries involved, especially exploiting conformal invariants. The paper concludes with some general results, examples and open problems.