The uniformization theorem states that every simply connected Riemann surface is biholomorphic to exactly one of the Riemann sphere , the complex plane , or the unit disc . A surface is uniformized by one of these when that surface is its universal cover. The only surface uniformized by is the sphere itself, because every nonidentity Möbius transformation has a fixed point and therefore cannot act as a deck transformation. The Riemann surfaces uniformized by the complex plane are
Let have a complement containing at least two points. Its universal cover cannot be the sphere because is noncompact. If it were the plane, the covering map would be a nonconstant entire function omitting two values, contrary to the Little Picard theorem. The plane domain with two omitted points is hyperbolic, so
Now put . The spherical possibility occurs only for . By the preceding list, the plane-uniformized possibilities are
which give respectively . Every remaining pair has and must have disc universal cover. Thus the uniformization of a punctured compact Riemann surface gives
For the complex torus , any analytic map lifts through the universal covering map to an entire function . If is constant, so is . Otherwise Little Picard says that omits at most one complex number. For every , its lifts form an infinite coset , so at least one lift is attained by . Hence the holomorphic map from the complex plane to a one-dimensional complex torus satisfies
Finally, and are homeomorphic by
They are not conformally equivalent: a biholomorphism would be a nonconstant bounded entire function, contradicting the Liouville theorem. This proves the claimed example of complex plane and unit disc are homeomorphic but not conformally equivalent.
One form of the Baire category theorem says that a nonempty complete metric space cannot be a countable union of closed nowhere dense sets.
For each nonnegative integer , put
Because is an entire function, every derivative is continuous and is closed. No is identically zero: if for some , repeated integration shows that is a polynomial. By the identity theorem, the zero set of the nonzero holomorphic function has empty interior. Thus each is nowhere dense.
The complex plane is complete, so the Baire category theorem gives
Choose outside this union. Then for every , and hence every coefficient in the Taylor series about is nonzero. Such a point therefore exists.
For each , define
Every is an entire function, hence continuous, so is closed. The hypothesis says
The complex plane is a complete metric space. The Baire category theorem therefore implies that some has nonempty interior. Thus vanishes on an open set, and the identity theorem gives
on all of . If , then ; otherwise the power series of has no term of degree or higher. Hence is a polynomial of degree at most . This is the pointwise vanishing derivative criterion for a polynomial.
Let be the universal covering map. Since the complex plane is a simply connected domain, the lifting criterion for a covering space gives a holomorphic lift between one-dimensional complex tori such that
For every , the difference belongs to the discrete period lattice . It depends continuously on , so it is constant. Differentiating shows that the derivative is -periodic. It is bounded on the compact closure of a fundamental parallelogram, and periodicity makes it bounded on all of . The Liouville theorem therefore makes constant, and hence
Thus every holomorphic map has an affine lift of a holomorphic map between one-dimensional complex tori. If “map of complex tori” means an identity-preserving map, choose ; then , so is the required linear map. Without that convention the statement must say affine, since a nonzero translation in a group of the torus lifts to .
The Weierstrass elliptic function of is
The subtracted term gives the Normal convergence of the Weierstrass elliptic-function series away from . Put
The Laurent coefficients of the Weierstrass elliptic function at zero give
Set and . Direct substitution shows that the principal part and constant term of
vanish at zero. Since is an elliptic function, translation gives the same cancellation at every point of the period lattice. Every apparent isolated singularity is therefore a removable singularity, so is an entire function. It is periodic and hence bounded on the translates of a compact fundamental parallelogram. The Liouville theorem gives , which proves the Weierstrass elliptic differential equation
Finally suppose that is a biholomorphic group homomorphism. Its identity-preserving lift has the form by the first part. Since the inverse map also lifts linearly,
Choose a -basis of . Multiplication by is then represented by a unimodular matrix . As a real-linear transformation of , it has determinant ; hence and . The characteristic polynomial of and the Cayley-Hamilton theorem give
This already has the required form with and . Moreover , so forces . Thus is a root of unity, of order , , , , or , completing the description of an automorphism of a one-dimensional complex torus.
For , close the -contour in the upper half-plane. Jordan lemma removes the large semicircle, and the only enclosed pole is the order- pole at . By the residue at a pole of order n,
The residue theorem therefore gives
To continue the integral itself, move the -contour downward locally as approaches and crosses the real axis, always keeping the pole above the contour. This analytic continuation by contour deformation defines
where passes below . Closing upward continues to enclose the pole, even when , so
there as well. The right-hand side is an entire function, so it is the unique analytic continuation of to the whole complex plane.
Equality in the triangle inequality holds exactly when the two displacement vectors and point in the same direction. Thus lies on the closed line segment joining and . Conversely, every point of that segment satisfies
The solution set is therefore precisely that segment in the complex plane.
The uniformization theorem says that every simply connected Riemann surface is conformally equivalent to exactly one of the Riemann sphere, the complex plane, and the unit disc. A proper simply connected plane domain is noncompact, so it is not the sphere. It cannot be uniformized by the plane: after choosing a point outside the domain, a branch of a square root and then a Möbius transformation would produce a nonconstant bounded entire function, contradicting the Liouville theorem. It is therefore conformally equivalent to the disc, which is the Riemann mapping theorem.
Put
This slit complex plane is a simply connected domain. On there is one branch of that equals at zero, and its reciprocal is holomorphic. The primitive of a holomorphic function on a simply connected domain therefore makes the integral from zero path-independent, so is single-valued.
For unrestricted paths, going once around either branch point changes the sign of the square root. The resulting analytic continuation therefore need not return to the original germ, and the value of can depend on the path.
The inverse is nonconstant; locally at zero,
If the assumed meromorphic function had no poles, it would be entire. It is bounded on the compact closure of a fundamental parallelogram, and its two periods then make it bounded throughout the complex plane. The Liouville theorem would force it to be constant, a contradiction. Therefore has at least one pole, as stated by the general result that a nonconstant elliptic function has a pole.
The uniformization theorem states that every simply connected Riemann surface is conformally equivalent to exactly one of the Riemann sphere , the complex plane , or the open unit disc . Equivalently, every connected Riemann surface is a quotient of one of these by a free properly discontinuous group of conformal automorphisms.
For , every nonidentity Möbius transformation has a fixed point. A free action is therefore trivial, so the only surface uniformized by the sphere is
Every conformal automorphism of has the form . If , it has a fixed point, so a group acting freely consists only of translations. A discrete subgroup of has rank zero, one, or two. The corresponding quotients are
where is a rank-two lattice and is a complex torus. This proves the completeness of the Riemann surfaces uniformized by the complex plane.
Now let be a domain whose complement contains two distinct points. Its universal cover cannot be the sphere because no nonconstant holomorphic map from a compact Riemann surface has image in the noncompact proper domain . If its universal cover were , the covering map followed by would be a nonconstant entire function omitting the two chosen complementary points, contradicting the Little Picard theorem. The uniformization theorem therefore leaves only
which is the plane domain with two omitted points is hyperbolic result.
Finally let be a holomorphic embedding with compact. At each puncture zero and infinity, an essential singularity would, by the Great Picard theorem in a coordinate chart, force values to be taken repeatedly and contradict injectivity. Thus extends holomorphically to
A generic point of the open image has exactly one preimage, so has degree one. A degree-one holomorphic map between compact Riemann surfaces is a biholomorphism; equivalently, the Riemann-Hurwitz formula rules out branching and gives the same conclusion. Therefore the compact Riemann surface containing an embedded punctured plane is
Riemann mapping theorem Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-24
Every nonempty simply connected proper open subset of the complex plane is conformally equivalent to the unit disc.
Let be a compact Riemann surface of genus , and remove distinct points. The punctured surface is uniformized by the unit disc exactly when . It is uniformized by the complex plane exactly when is or , corresponding respectively to , and to or a complex torus. The sole spherical case is .
Unit disc Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-03
The unit disc in the complex plane is .