Contractibility results for certain spaces of Riemannian metrics on the disc (Q2053654)

The authors provide a general contractibility criterion for subsets in the space of Riemannian metrics \(\mathfrak{R}(\overline{D})\) on the unit disc \(D\subset\mathbb{C}\). For instance, this result applies to the space of metrics that have positive Gauss curvature and make the boundary circle convex (or geodesic). The same conclusion is not known in any dimension \(n\geq 3\), and (by analogy with the closed case) is actually expected to be false for many values of \(n\geq 4\). As well as the authors obtained some results on the properties of the space \(\mathfrak{C}(\overline{D})\) of conformal classes of metrics. In particular, the authors prove that the \(\mathfrak{C}(\overline{D})\) is contractible. Let \(Diff(M)\) be the group of diffeomorphisms of manifold \(M\) and let \(Diff^+(M)\) be the orientation-preserving subgroup of \(Diff(M)\). If \(M\) is a compact surface and we fix three distinct points \(x_1, x_2, x_3\) on \(M\), then we let \(Diff_{\bullet}^+(M) = \{ \phi \in Diff^+(M): \phi (x_i) = x_i,\, i = 1, 2, 3\}\). Specifically, for \(M=\overline{D}\) let \(x_1 = 1\), \(x_2 = i\), \(x_3 = -1\). The authors employ the uniformization theorem in the following version: for any \(g \in \mathfrak{R}(\overline{D})\), there exists a map \(\phi \in Diff^+(\overline{D})\) and a function \(u \in C^{\infty}(\overline{D})\) such that \(g = \phi^* (e^{2u} g_0)\). For \([g]\in\mathfrak{C}(\overline{D})\) let \(\Phi([g])=\phi\); note that \(\Phi([g])\in Diff_{\bullet}^+(\overline{D})\). The authors also prove that the map \(\Phi: \mathfrak{C}(\overline{D})\to Diff^+_{\bullet}(\overline{D})\) is a homeomorphism.