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Hyperbolicity
In mathematics, a hyperbolic metric space is a metric space satisfying certain metric relations (depending quantitatively on a nonnegative real number δ) between points. The definition, introduced by Mikhael Gromov, generalizes the metric properties of classical hyperbolic geometry and of trees. Hyperbolicity is a large-scale property, and is very useful to the study of certain infinite groups called Gromov-hyperbolic groups. Definitions In this paragraph we give various definitions of a \delta-hyperbolic space. A metric space is said to be (Gromov-) hyperbolic if it is \delta-hyperbolic for some \delta > 0. Definition using the Gromov product Let (X,d) be a metric space. The Gromov product of two points y, z \in X with respect to a third one x \in X is defined by the formula: :(y,z)_x = \frac 1 2 \left( d(x, y) + d(x, z) - d(y, z) \right). Gromov's definition of a hyperbolic metric space is then as follows: X is \delta-hyperbolic if and only if all x,y,z,w \in X satisfy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov
Mikhael Leonidovich Gromov (also Mikhail Gromov, Michael Gromov or Misha Gromov; russian: link=no, Михаи́л Леони́дович Гро́мов; born 23 December 1943) is a Russian-French mathematician known for his work in geometry, analysis and group theory. He is a permanent member of IHÉS in France and a professor of mathematics at New York University. Gromov has won several prizes, including the Abel Prize in 2009 "for his revolutionary contributions to geometry". Biography Mikhail Gromov was born on 23 December 1943 in Boksitogorsk, Soviet Union. His Russian father Leonid Gromov and his Jewish mother Lea Rabinovitz were pathologists. His mother was the cousin of World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, as well as of the mathematician Isaak Moiseevich Rabinovich. Gromov was born during World War II, and his mother, who worked as a medical doctor in the Soviet Army, had to leave the front line in order to give birth to him. When Gromov was nine years old, his mother ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quasi-isometry
In mathematics, a quasi-isometry is a function between two metric spaces that respects large-scale geometry of these spaces and ignores their small-scale details. Two metric spaces are quasi-isometric if there exists a quasi-isometry between them. The property of being quasi-isometric behaves like an equivalence relation on the class of metric spaces. The concept of quasi-isometry is especially important in geometric group theory, following the work of Gromov. Definition Suppose that f is a (not necessarily continuous) function from one metric space (M_1,d_1) to a second metric space (M_2,d_2). Then f is called a ''quasi-isometry'' from (M_1,d_1) to (M_2,d_2) if there exist constants A\ge 1, B\ge 0, and C\ge 0 such that the following two properties both hold:P. de la Harpe, ''Topics in geometric group theory''. Chicago Lectures in Mathematics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2000. #For every two points x and y in M_1, the distance between their images is up to the add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Real Tree
In mathematics, real trees (also called \mathbb R-trees) are a class of metric spaces generalising simplicial trees. They arise naturally in many mathematical contexts, in particular geometric group theory and probability theory. They are also the simplest examples of Gromov hyperbolic spaces. Definition and examples Formal definition A metric space X is a real tree if it is a geodesic space where every triangle is a tripod. That is, for every three points x, y, \rho \in X there exists a point c = x \wedge y such that the geodesic segments rho,x rho,y/math> intersect in the segment rho,c/math> and also c \in ,y/math>. This definition is equivalent to X being a "zero-hyperbolic space" in the sense of Gromov (all triangles are "zero-thin"). Real trees can also be characterised by a topological property. A metric space X is a real tree if for any pair of points x, y \in X all topological embeddings \sigma of the segment ,1/math> into X such that \sigma(0) = x, \, \sigm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gromov-hyperbolic Group
In group theory, more precisely in geometric group theory, a hyperbolic group, also known as a ''word hyperbolic group'' or ''Gromov hyperbolic group'', is a finitely generated group equipped with a word metric satisfying certain properties abstracted from classical hyperbolic geometry. The notion of a hyperbolic group was introduced and developed by . The inspiration came from various existing mathematical theories: hyperbolic geometry but also low-dimensional topology (in particular the results of Max Dehn concerning the fundamental group of a hyperbolic Riemann surface, and more complex phenomena in three-dimensional topology), and combinatorial group theory. In a very influential (over 1000 citations ) chapter from 1987, Gromov proposed a wide-ranging research program. Ideas and foundational material in the theory of hyperbolic groups also stem from the work of George Mostow, William Thurston, James W. Cannon, Eliyahu Rips, and many others. Definition Let G be a finitely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quasi-isometry
In mathematics, a quasi-isometry is a function between two metric spaces that respects large-scale geometry of these spaces and ignores their small-scale details. Two metric spaces are quasi-isometric if there exists a quasi-isometry between them. The property of being quasi-isometric behaves like an equivalence relation on the class of metric spaces. The concept of quasi-isometry is especially important in geometric group theory, following the work of Gromov. Definition Suppose that f is a (not necessarily continuous) function from one metric space (M_1,d_1) to a second metric space (M_2,d_2). Then f is called a ''quasi-isometry'' from (M_1,d_1) to (M_2,d_2) if there exist constants A\ge 1, B\ge 0, and C\ge 0 such that the following two properties both hold:P. de la Harpe, ''Topics in geometric group theory''. Chicago Lectures in Mathematics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 2000. #For every two points x and y in M_1, the distance between their images is up to the add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isoperimetric Inequality
In mathematics, the isoperimetric inequality is a geometric inequality involving the perimeter of a set and its volume. In n-dimensional space \R^n the inequality lower bounds the surface area or perimeter \operatorname(S) of a set S\subset\R^n by its volume \operatorname(S), :\operatorname(S)\geq n \operatorname(S)^ \, \operatorname(B_1)^, where B_1\subset\R^n is a unit sphere. The equality holds only when S is a sphere in \R^n. On a plane, i.e. when n=2, the isoperimetric inequality relates the square of the circumference of a closed curve and the area of a plane region it encloses. '' Isoperimetric'' literally means "having the same perimeter". Specifically in \R ^2, the isoperimetric inequality states, for the length ''L'' of a closed curve and the area ''A'' of the planar region that it encloses, that : L^2 \ge 4\pi A, and that equality holds if and only if the curve is a circle. The isoperimetric problem is to determine a plane figure of the largest possible area whose ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadamard Manifold
In mathematics, a Hadamard manifold, named after Jacques Hadamard — more often called a Cartan–Hadamard manifold, after Élie Cartan — is a Riemannian manifold (M, g) that is complete and simply connected and has everywhere non-positive sectional curvature. By Cartan–Hadamard theorem all Cartan–Hadamard manifolds are diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space \R^n. Furthermore it follows from the Hopf–Rinow theorem that every pairs of points in a Cartan–Hadamard manifold may be connected by a unique geodesic segment. Thus Cartan–Hadamard manifolds are some of the closest relatives of \R^n. Examples The Euclidean space \R^n with its usual metric is a Cartan-Hadamard manifold with constant sectional curvature equal to 0. Standard n-dimensional hyperbolic space \mathbb^n is a Cartan-Hadamard manifold with constant sectional curvature equal to -1. Properties In Cartan-Hadamard manifolds, the map \exp_p : \operatornameM_p \to M is a covering map A covering of a topologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sectional Curvature
In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature ''K''(σ''p'') depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σ''p'' of the tangent space at a point ''p'' of the manifold. It can be defined geometrically as the Gaussian curvature of the surface which has the plane σ''p'' as a tangent plane at ''p'', obtained from geodesics which start at ''p'' in the directions of σ''p'' (in other words, the image of σ''p'' under the exponential map at ''p''). The sectional curvature is a real-valued function on the 2-Grassmannian bundle over the manifold. The sectional curvature determines the curvature tensor completely. Definition Given a Riemannian manifold and two linearly independent tangent vectors at the same point, ''u'' and ''v'', we can define :K(u,v)= Here ''R'' is the Riemann curvature tensor, defined here by the convention R(u,v)w=\nabla_u\nabla_vw-\nabla_v\n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CAT Space
In mathematics, a \mathbf(k) space, where k is a real number, is a specific type of metric space. Intuitively, triangles in a \operatorname(k) space are "slimmer" than corresponding "model triangles" in a standard space of constant curvature k. In a \operatorname(k) space, the curvature is bounded from above by k. A notable special case is k=0; complete \operatorname(0) spaces are known as "Hadamard spaces" after the French mathematician Jacques Hadamard. Originally, Aleksandrov called these spaces “\mathfrak_k domain”. The terminology \operatorname(k) was coined by Mikhail Gromov in 1987 and is an acronym for Élie Cartan, Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov and Victor Andreevich Toponogov (although Toponogov never explored curvature bounded above in publications). Definitions For a real number k, let M_k denote the unique complete simply connected surface (real 2-dimensional Riemannian manifold) with constant curvature k. Denote by D_k the diameter of M_k, which is \infty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metric Space
In mathematics, a metric space is a set together with a notion of '' distance'' between its elements, usually called points. The distance is measured by a function called a metric or distance function. Metric spaces are the most general setting for studying many of the concepts of mathematical analysis and geometry. The most familiar example of a metric space is 3-dimensional Euclidean space with its usual notion of distance. Other well-known examples are a sphere equipped with the angular distance and the hyperbolic plane. A metric may correspond to a metaphorical, rather than physical, notion of distance: for example, the set of 100-character Unicode strings can be equipped with the Hamming distance, which measures the number of characters that need to be changed to get from one string to another. Since they are very general, metric spaces are a tool used in many different branches of mathematics. Many types of mathematical objects have a natural notion of distance an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cell Complex
A CW complex (also called cellular complex or cell complex) is a kind of a topological space that is particularly important in algebraic topology. It was introduced by J. H. C. Whitehead (open access) to meet the needs of homotopy theory. This class of spaces is broader and has some better categorical properties than simplicial complexes, but still retains a combinatorial nature that allows for computation (often with a much smaller complex). The ''C'' stands for "closure-finite", and the ''W'' for "weak" topology. Definition CW complex A CW complex is constructed by taking the union of a sequence of topological spaces\emptyset = X_ \subset X_0 \subset X_1 \subset \cdotssuch that each X_k is obtained from X_ by gluing copies of k-cells (e^k_\alpha)_\alpha, each homeomorphic to D^k, to X_ by continuous gluing maps g^k_\alpha: \partial e^k_\alpha \to X_. The maps are also called attaching maps. Each X_k is called the k-skeleton of the complex. The topology of X = \cup_ X_k ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torus
In geometry, a torus (plural tori, colloquially donut or doughnut) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space about an axis that is coplanar with the circle. If the axis of revolution does not touch the circle, the surface has a ring shape and is called a torus of revolution. If the axis of revolution is tangent to the circle, the surface is a horn torus. If the axis of revolution passes twice through the circle, the surface is a spindle torus. If the axis of revolution passes through the center of the circle, the surface is a degenerate torus, a double-covered sphere. If the revolved curve is not a circle, the surface is called a ''toroid'', as in a square toroid. Real-world objects that approximate a torus of revolution include swim rings, inner tubes and ringette rings. Eyeglass lenses that combine spherical and cylindrical correction are toric lenses. A torus should not be confused with a '' solid torus'', which is formed by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
