English

Compact hyperbolic tetrahedra with non-obtuse dihedral angles

Geometric Topology 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

Given a combinatorial description CC of a polyhedron having EE edges, the space of dihedral angles of all compact hyperbolic polyhedra that realize CC is generally not a convex subset of RE\mathbb{R}^E \cite{DIAZ}. If CC has five or more faces, Andreev's Theorem states that the corresponding space of dihedral angles ACA_C obtained by restricting to {\em non-obtuse} angles is a convex polytope. In this paper we explain why Andreev did not consider tetrahedra, the only polyhedra having fewer than five faces, by demonstrating that the space of dihedral angles of compact hyperbolic tetrahedra, after restricting to non-obtuse angles, is non-convex. Our proof provides a simple example of the ``method of continuity'', the technique used in classification theorems on polyhedra by Alexandrow \cite{ALEX}, Andreev \cite{AND}, and Rivin-Hodgson \cite{RH}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0601148,
  title  = {Compact hyperbolic tetrahedra with non-obtuse dihedral angles},
  author = {Roland K. W. Roeder},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0601148},
  year   = {2007}
}

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19 pages