Monotone homotopies and contracting discs on Riemannian surfaces

DOI10.1142/S1793525318500103zbMATH Open1395.53035arXiv1311.2995OpenAlexW2963055090WikidataQ115244567 ScholiaQ115244567MaRDI QIDQ4565336FDOQ4565336

Authors: Gregory R. Chambers, Regina Rotman 

Publication date: 12 June 2018

Published in: Journal of Topology and Analysis (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We prove a "gluing" theorem for monotone homotopies; a monotone homotopy is a homotopy through simple contractible closed curves which themselves are pairwise disjoint. We show that two monotone homotopies which have appropriate overlap can be replaced by a single monotone homotopy. The ideas used to prove this theorem are used in [CL2] to prove an analogous result for cycles, which forms a critical step in their proof of the existence of minimal surfaces in complete non-compact manifolds of finite volume. We also show that, if monotone homotopies exist, then fixed point contractions through short curves exist. In particular, suppose that $gamma$ is a simple closed curve of a Riemannian surface, and that there exists a monotone contraction which covers a disc which $gamma$ bounds consisting of curves of length $leqL$. If $epsilon>0$ and $qingamma$, then there exists a homotopy that contracts $gamma$ to $q$ over loops that are based at $q$ and have length bounded by $3L+2d+epsilon$, where $d$ is the diameter of the surface. If the surface is a disc, and if $gamma$ is the boundary of this disc, then this bound can be improved to $L+2d+epsilon$.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.2995

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zbMATH Keywords

metric geometryquantitative topologyhomotopies of curves on surfaces.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Global Riemannian geometry, including pinching (53C20) Spaces of embeddings and immersions (58D10) Homotopy groups (55Q99)

Cites Work

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Cited In (5)

• Contracting thin disks
• Contracting the boundary of a Riemannian 2-disc
• Existence of minimal hypersurfaces in complete manifolds of finite volume
• Computing optimal homotopies over a spiked plane with polygonal boundary
• Constructing monotone homotopies and sweepouts

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