Spherical and hyperbolic conics

Abstract: This is a survey of metric properties of non-Euclidean conics, mainly based on works of Chasles and Story. A spherical conic is the intersection of the sphere with a quadratic cone; similarly, a hyperbolic conic is the intersection of the Beltrami-Cayley-Klein disk with an affine conic. Non-Euclidean conics have metric properties similar to those of Euclidean conics, and even more due to the polarity that works here better than in the Euclidean plane.

Review text

This is a survey of interesting results about conics in hyperbolic and spherical geometry, ``to a great extent based on \textit{M. Chasles} [``Résumé d'une théorie des coniques sphériques homofocales et des surfaces du second ordre homofocales, J. Math. Pures Appl. (2) 5, 425--454 (1860)] and \textit{W. E. Story} [Am. J. Math. 5, 358--382 (1883; JFM 15.0458.05)]. After defining and classifying conic sections and polarities in spherical and hyperbolic geometry, the author mentions, with proof, several results about them. Sample theorems for the spherical case: (1) A tangent to a spherical conic cuts from the lune formed by the focal lines a triangle of constant area; (2) Two tangents to a spherical conic intersect the focal lines in four points that are equidistant from the line through the points tangency. Sample theorem for the hyperbolic case: Let $(F_1, F_2)$ be a pair of foci of a hyperbolic conic. Then every light ray originating from $F_1$ reflects from the conic in such a way that it either passes through $F_2$ or contains a ray originating from $F_2$. There is also a result, Ivory's lemma, common to both the spherical and the hyperbolic setting: The diagonals in a quadrilateral formed by four confocal conics have equal lengths. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1412.51001].

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