English

Spinors and Descartes' Theorem

Geometric Topology 2023-10-19 v1

Abstract

Descartes' circle theorem relates the curvatures of four mutually externally tangent circles, three "petal" circles around the exterior of a central circle, forming a "33-flower" configuration. We generalise this theorem to the case of an "nn-flower", consisting of nn tangent circles around the exterior of a central circle, and give an explicit equation satisfied by their curvatures. The proof uses a spinorial description of horospheres in hyperbolic geometry.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.11701,
  title  = {Spinors and Descartes' Theorem},
  author = {Daniel V. Mathews and Orion Zymaris},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.11701},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

17 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:54:00.103Z