No label defined (Q4345458)

A well-known theorem due to Cohn-Vossen states that the total curvature of a connected, finitely connected, complete and noncompact Riemannian 2-manifold \(M\) without boundary does not exceed \(2\pi\chi(M).\) Here \(\chi(M)\) is the Euler characteristic of \(M.\) Busemann discussed the Cohn-Vossen theorem on Busemann \(G\)-surfaces on which he introduced the notion of the Busemann total excess. He proved in \textit{H. Busemann} [`The geometry of geodesics' (Academic Press, New York) (1955; Zbl 0112.37002)] the fundamental relation between the excess and Euler characteristic of Busemann \(G\)-surfaces. The Busemann total excess was recently discussed on Alexandrov surfaces in \textit{Y. Machigashira} [The Gaussian curvature of Alexandrov surfaces (to appear in J. Math. Soc. Japan)] with a necessary change of the notion of total excess and used to define the Gaussian curvature on Alexandrov surfaces. It is interesting to study the geometric meaning of total excess on complete noncompact Alexandrov surfaces. The author's results are stated as follows. Assume that \(X\) has one end. If the total excess \(c(X)\) of \(X\) satisfies \(c(X)>(2\chi(X)-1)\pi,\) then every Busemann function on \(X\) is exhaustion. If \(c(X)<(2\chi(X)-1)\pi,\) then every Busemann function on \(X\) is non-exhaustion. Note that if \(c(X)=(2\chi(X)-1)\pi,\) then such an \(X\) admits both exhaustion and non-exhaustion Busemann functions. Such an example is given in \textit{K. Shiohama} [Ill. J. Math. 28, 597-620 (1984; Zbl 0551.53022)].