Around Efimov's differential test for homeomorphism (Q2022349)

There is a famous result due to Efimov, more precisely the following Theorem: No surface can be \(C^2\)-immersed in Euclidean 3-space so as to be complete in the induced Riemannian metric, with Gauss curvature \(K \le \) constant \(< 0\). The paper under review starts with a mini-survey of results related to the previous theorem. Among other things, Efimov established that the condition \(K \le\) constant \(< 0\) is not the only obstacle for the immersibility of a complete surface of negative curvature; he showed that a rather slow change of Gauss curvature is another obstacle. In all those numerous articles, he used to a large extent one and the same method based on the study of the spherical image of a surface. At that study, an essential role belongs to statements that, under some conditions, a locally homeomorphic mapping \(f : \mathbb{R}^2 \to \mathbb{R}^2\) is a global homeomorphism and \(f(\mathbb{R}^2)\) is a convex domain in \(\mathbb{R}^2\). Two other theorems of Efimov are recalled in the present paper and the author gives an overview on the analogues of these theorems, their generalizations and applications. The article is devoted to presentation of results motivated by the theory of surfaces, the theory of global inverse function, the Jacobian Conjecture, and the global asymptotic stability of dynamical systems, respectively.