On the best pinching constant of conformal metrics on \(\mathbb S^2\) with one and two conical singularities (Q1948734)

In chapter 13 (on orbifolds) of his Princeton Lecture Notes on the Geometry and Topology of 3-manifolds, Thurston asked for the best pinching constant for conformal metrics on the 2-sphere \(S^2\) with one or two conical singularities of angles \(2\pi(1+ \alpha_1)\) and \(2\pi(1+ \alpha_2)\) (when discussing the case of bad 2-orbifolds). In the present paper this is answered for \(\alpha_1 \in (-1,0)\) or \(-1 < \alpha_1 < \alpha_2 < 0\). From the authors' abstract: ``The case on one singularity is a corollary of a result by \textit{C.-C. Chen} and \textit{C.-S. Lin} [Commun. Anal. Geom. 6, No. 1, 1--19 (1998; Zbl 0903.35009)] concerning the curvature of conformal metrics on \(\mathbb R^2\) with bounded Gaussian curvature \(0 < a \leq K \leq b < +\infty\). The case with two singularities is worked out by a generalization of that result.''