Cohn-Vossen's inequality
Relates the integral of Gaussian curvature of surfaces to the Euler characteristic From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In differential geometry, Cohn-Vossen's inequality, named after Stefan Cohn-Vossen, relates the integral of Gaussian curvature of a non-compact surface to the Euler characteristic. It is akin to the Gauss–Bonnet theorem for a compact surface.
A divergent path within a Riemannian manifold is a smooth curve in the manifold that is not contained within any compact subset of the manifold. A complete manifold is one in which every divergent path has infinite length with respect to the Riemannian metric on the manifold. Cohn-Vossen's inequality states that in every complete Riemannian 2-manifold S with finite total curvature and finite Euler characteristic, we have[1]
where K is the Gaussian curvature, dA is the element of area, and χ is the Euler characteristic.
- If S is a compact surface (without boundary), then the inequality is an equality by the usual Gauss–Bonnet theorem for compact manifolds.
- If S has a boundary, then the Gauss–Bonnet theorem gives
- where is the geodesic curvature of the boundary, and its integral the total curvature which is necessarily positive for a boundary curve, and the inequality is strict. (A similar result holds when the boundary of S is piecewise smooth.)
- If S is the plane R2, then the curvature of S is zero, and χ(S) = 1, so the inequality is strict: 0 < 2π.
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
