On the total volume of the double hyperbolic space (Q6103601)

The author introduces, for all dimensions \(n\), a new geometry, called double hyperbolic space and denoted by \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\), which is an extesion of the \(n\)-dimensional hyperbolic space \({\mathbb H}^n\), a space formed by a two-sheeted hyperboloid by identifying their boundary at infinity projectively. Thus \({\mathbb H}_{-}^{n}\), the lower sheet, is defined by \(\{x \in {\mathbb R}_{-}^{n,1}: x \cdot x =-1, x_0 < 0\}\), where \({\mathbb R}_{-}^{n,1}\) is a copy of \({\mathbb R}^{n,1}\), i.e., it has the same bilinear product \(x \cdot y =-x_0 y_0 + x_1 y_1 + \dots + x_n y_n\) as in \({\mathbb R}^{n,1}\) , but the \(ds\) on \({\mathbb R}_{-}^{n,1}\) is the negative of the \(ds\) on \({\mathbb R}^{n,1}\): \[ ds =-\left(-dx_{0}^2 + dx_{1}^2 +\ldots + d x_{n}^2\right)^{1/2}. \] Identifying \(\partial {\mathbb H}^n\) with \(\partial {\mathbb H}_{-}^n\) projectively, \({\mathbb H}^n\) and \({\mathbb H}_{-}^{n}\) are glued together to form \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\), a space homeomorphic to the standard unit \(n\)-sphere \({\mathbb S}^n\). There is also a choice of the extension of the volume notion from \({\mathbb H}^n\) to \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\). After presenting several models for \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\), the author proves the main results: The total volume of \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\) is \(i^n\) times the \(n\)-dimensional volume of \({\mathbb S}^n\); a Schläfli differential formula for polytopes in \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\); the uniform boundedness, for fixed \(m\), of the volume of polytopes in \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\) which are the intersection of at most \(m\) half-spaces; for \(n\) odd, the volume of a polytope in \({\mathbb D}{\mathbb H}^n\) is shown to be completely determined by its intersection with \(\partial {\mathbb H}^{n}\).