A generalization of Andreev's theorem (Q2497083)

This article explores necessary and sufficient conditions for a hyperbolic polyhedron to exist with given dihedral angles. Andreev's theorem gives such conditions for the case that all the dihedral angles are less than \(\pi/2\). By focusing on so-called ``descendants of the tetrahedron'', this article is able to extend Andreev's results to dihedral angles up to \(\pi\). A descendant of the tetrahedron is a polyhedron obtained from a tetrahedron by successively truncating single vertices. The first such descendant is therefore the triangular prism. A Gram matrix is a matrix associated with a polyhedron, capturing information about its dihedral angles. The article gives and proves detailed necessary and sufficient conditions on the dihedral angles of a triangular prism for the prism to exist in hyperbolic space. More importantly, a recursive method is given that allows such conditions to be derived for any tetrahedron descendant.