Connectedness properties of the space of complete nonnegatively curved planes (Q2516892)

In this paper, the authors study connectedness properties of the set \(\mathcal{R}_{\geq 0}^k(\mathbb{R}^2)\) of complete nonnegatively curved metrics on \(\mathbb{R}^2\) equipped with the \(C^k\) topology. The main problem of this paper is: when can two metrics be deformed to each other through complete nonnegatively curved metrics outside a given subset, and how large is the space of such deformations. It is well-known that any complete nonnegatively curved metric on \(\mathbb{R}^2\) is conformally equivalent to the standard Euclidean metric \(g_0\), i.e., isometric to \(e^{-2u}g_0\) for some smooth function \(u\). The metric \(e^{-2u}g_0\) has nonnegative curvature if and only if \(u\) is subharmonic. Characterizing subharmonic functions that correspond to complete metrics is not straightforward, and doing so is the main objective of this paper. If \(k\) is infinite, the authors prove that the space \(\mathcal{R}_{\geq 0}^k(\mathbb{R}^2)\) is homeomorphic to the separable Hilbert space. A similar result holds for the associated moduli space. The proof combines properties of subharmonic functions with results of infinite dimensional topology and dimension theory. A key step is a characterization of the conformal factors that make the standard Euclidean metric on the plane into a complete metric of nonnegative sectional curvature.