What kinds of singular surfaces can admit constant curvature? (Q1902020)

The classical uniformization theorem says that every smooth Riemannian metric on a two-dimensional surface is pointwise conformal to one with constant curvature. This result is not true for surfaces with singularities, so it is naturally to ask what kinds of singular surfaces admit constant curvature. The authors consider surfaces with conical singularities. Such a surface is a compact Riemannian surface \(S\) with a smooth metric everywhere except at finitely many points \(p_1,\dots, p_m\). Locally, near the singular point \(p_i\), the surface is diffeomorphic to a cone with angle \(\theta_i > 0\), and the metric can be written as \(ds^2 = \rho(x) |x|^{-\alpha_i} |dx|^2\) in a local coordinate centered at \(p_i\), where \(\alpha_i = 2 - (\theta_i /\pi)\) and \(\rho\) is a smooth function. \textit{M. Troyanov} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 324, No. 2, 793-821 (1991; Zbl 0724.53023)] pointed out that in the process of prescribing Gaussian curvature, according to the difficulty of the corresponding variational problem, one can use the number \(\chi(S,\theta) = \chi(S) + \sum^k_{i = 1} ((\theta_i /2\pi) -1)\) to characterize three cases: subcritical (resp. critical, resp. supercritical) case, that is \(\chi(S,\theta) <\) (resp. \(=\), resp. \(>\)) \(\min_i\{2,\theta_i/\pi\}\), where \(\chi(S)\) is the Euler characteristic of \(S\). In the subcritical case, Troyanov showed that every conical singular metric is pointwise conformal to one with constant curvature. Calabi and Troyanov [loc. cit.] showed that the footballs (a ``football'' is the sphere with two singularities of equal order, which is an example for the critical case) have constant curvature, while the teardrops (a ``teardrop'' is the sphere with one singularity, which is an example for the supercritical case) do not. Concerning other such surfaces admitting constant curvature, the authors establish the following Theorem: if \(S\) is a surface with conical singularities of angles \(\theta_i < 2\pi\) for \(i =1,\dots, m\), then, in the critical and supercritical cases, the only surfaces admitting constant curvature are the footballs. The proof is self-contained. They also consider the case where some of the angles \(\theta_i\) are bigger than \(2\pi\), and find obstructions for a metric to have constant curvature. Other interesting results are also derived. Some similar results have been obtained by \textit{F. Luo} and \textit{G. Tian} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 116, No. 4, 1119-1129 (1992; Zbl 0806.53012)]. They considered a sphere with three or more conical singularities. In the case where all \(\theta_i < 2\pi\), they showed that such a metric admits constant curvature if and only if it is in a subcritical case. Their proof is geometrical. In the paper under review, the proofs of the authors are entirely different and are purely analytical. Moreover, by their approach, one needs no assumptions on the number of singularities and one can also consider the case where the \(\theta_i\) are bigger than \(2\pi\).