Deformations of unbounded convex bodies and hypersurfaces (Q2851607)

In the paper, the author studies the space \(\mathcal K^n\) of noncompact convex bodies \(K\) with \(\partial K\) homeomorphic to \(\mathbb R^{n-1}\) and the space \(\partial \mathcal K^{n}\) of complete convex hypersurfaces of \(\mathbb R^n\) which are homeomorphic to \(\mathbb R^{n-1}\). Let \(\mathcal H^n\) be the collection of half-spaces whose boundaries pass through the origin and let \(\partial\mathcal H^n\) be the Grassmannian space \(G(n-1,n)\).NEWLINENEWLINEThe main result of the paper is the following theorem.NEWLINENEWLINE Theorem. \(\mathcal K^n\) (resp. \(\partial\mathcal K^n\)) admits a regularity preserving strong deformation onto \(\mathcal H^n\)(resp. \(\partial \mathcal H^n\)) with respect to the asymptotic topology. Under this deformation the total curvature of each element of \(\mathcal K^n\) (resp. \(\partial\mathcal K^n\)) evolves monotonically, as its unit normal cone uniformly shrinks to a single vector.NEWLINENEWLINE The author also shows that, ``modulo proper rotation, the subspaces of \(\partial\mathcal K^n\) consisting of smooth, strictly convex, or positively curved hypersurfaces are each contractible.''