More on Universal Cover of a Surface with Boundary

In summary, the conversation discusses the construction of the universal cover of a hyperbolic surface with geodesic boundary. The cover is a closed disk with a Cantor set removed from its boundary. The preimage of an interval of the Cantor set is being investigated, and it is mentioned that the cover is constructed by gluing more pants to cap all the boundary components. There is a question about the origin of the removed Cantor set in the cover and whether it is an infinitely-sheeted cover. The conversation also mentions the projection map and the need for further reading on hyperbolic geometry.
  • #1
WWGD
Science Advisor
Gold Member
7,010
10,476
I am trying to understand in more detail the answer to:
http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/673187/universal-cover-of-a-surface-with-boundary
It is mentioned that the universal cover of a hyperbolic surface ##S## with geodesic boundary is a closed disk ##D^2## with a Cantor set removed from its boundary. I am trying to see what the preimage of an interval of the Cantor set is under this cover, i.e., why are we removing the Cantor set from the boundary . I understand we first construct the surface ##S## by gluing pairs of pants and then embed ##S## in a closed hyperbolic surface ##S^## with boundary, and that the universal cover ##S^ ~## (which we construct by gluing more pants so that we cap all the boundar components.) is the Poincare disk
##D^2:= \mathbb H^2 \cup S^1_{\infty} ## (i.e., the last part is the x-axis plus the point at ##\infty## .) But where does the removed Cantor set in the cover of the surface with boundary come from? Are we getting a sort-of infinitely-sheeted cover, and, if so, is there a reasonably-nice expression for the projection map? And if someone had a ref. for explaining why the lift of a hyperbolic surface without boundary is the Poincare disk, that would be great.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #2
Never mind, thanks, it seems I have a lot of reading to do in Hyperbolic geometry.
 

1. What is the universal cover of a surface with boundary?

The universal cover of a surface with boundary is a covering space that is simply connected and contains every loop on the surface as a lift. It is the largest simply connected covering space of the surface with boundary.

2. How is the universal cover of a surface with boundary different from the universal cover of a closed surface?

The universal cover of a surface with boundary is different from the universal cover of a closed surface in that the former contains boundary components, while the latter does not. This means that the universal cover of a surface with boundary will have more sheets in its covering map compared to the universal cover of a closed surface.

3. How is the universal cover of a surface with boundary related to its fundamental group?

The universal cover of a surface with boundary is intimately related to its fundamental group. In fact, the fundamental group of the surface with boundary is isomorphic to the group of deck transformations of the universal cover. This means that the universal cover captures all the information about the fundamental group of the surface with boundary.

4. What is the significance of the universal cover of a surface with boundary in topology?

The universal cover of a surface with boundary plays an important role in topology as it helps in understanding the topological properties of the surface with boundary. It allows for the study of covering spaces and fundamental groups of the surface, which in turn provides information about its homotopy and homology groups. Additionally, the universal cover is used in the construction of other important spaces such as the universal bundle and the classifying space.

5. How is the universal cover of a surface with boundary constructed?

The universal cover of a surface with boundary is constructed by taking the simply connected covering space of the surface, which is the universal cover of the closed surface, and then attaching additional sheets to cover the boundary components. This results in a covering map with more sheets compared to the universal cover of the closed surface, thus giving the universal cover of the surface with boundary.

Similar threads

  • Differential Geometry
Replies
5
Views
2K
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • Special and General Relativity
Replies
13
Views
2K
  • Differential Geometry
Replies
6
Views
2K
Replies
2
Views
4K
  • Topology and Analysis
Replies
12
Views
2K
  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
Replies
1
Views
1K
Replies
42
Views
3K
Replies
1
Views
975
Replies
5
Views
1K
Back
Top