The global Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a compact oriented surface without boundary is
For a connected closed orientable surface of genus , this is
No. The missing point is not assumed to complete as a smooth surface, so the hypotheses of the global Gauss-Bonnet theorem do not apply to .
For a concrete counterexample, rotate a smooth simple arc , parametrized by arc length for , about the -axis. Arrange that it starts smoothly on the axis,
stays in for , and converges to another point of the axis as , with
The endpoint is omitted. The resulting surface of revolution is diffeomorphic to minus one point, and adjoining its limiting endpoint makes the set compact.
For an arc-length surface of revolution,
Therefore the total Gaussian curvature of a punctured surface with a singular compactification point is
which can take values different from . Compactness of the one-point closure alone therefore does not determine the integral.
A geodesic triangulation of a closed smooth surface decomposes it into finitely many triangular discs whose edges are geodesic arcs and whose intersections are common faces. Its Euler number is
The Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a closed surface states
For any triangulation of a closed surface, each triangular face has three edges and every edge belongs to two faces, so . The sum of all vertex valencies is . Hence the average valency is
The torus has Euler characteristic . Using gives , so and
For a compact oriented regular surface without boundary, the Gauss-Bonnet theorem states
Here is the Gaussian curvature, the product of the two principal curvatures; is the area element induced by the first fundamental form; and is the Euler characteristic. If is connected and has genus , the classification theorem for surfaces gives , so
Since , Gauss-Bonnet gives , hence . If , the integral of the continuous nonnegative function is zero, so vanishes everywhere.
That is impossible for a compact regular surface in . Choose maximizing the Euclidean distance from the origin, after translating the origin off the surface if necessary. The sphere centered at the origin through is a supporting sphere. The supporting-sphere curvature bound shows that both principal curvatures at have the same sign and nonzero magnitude, so . Therefore , and . The classification theorem for surfaces now shows that is diffeomorphic to the sphere.
False with the printed in the paper. Let the even-indexed surfaces be one fixed unit sphere and the odd-indexed surfaces one fixed ring torus. Then
but infinitely many surfaces are tori. The two fixed surfaces lie in one ball and have uniformly bounded area. Their injectivity radii have a positive common lower bound, and compactness gives a common bound on , hence on every radial derivative . Thus this alternating sequence satisfies all four additional conditions as well.
The intended statement becomes true if is replaced by
Here is the proof. Put , so . Choose maximizing distance from the centre of the fixed containing ball. The supporting-sphere curvature bound gives
Write and in geodesic polar coordinates. Choose a fixed sufficiently small and set . Conditions (3) and (4) allow to be chosen so that and
The Jacobi equation , with and , and the Sturm comparison theorem then give on this ball for a constant independent of . Consequently
Since elsewhere and ,
for all sufficiently large . Gauss-Bonnet forces , and the classification theorem for surfaces makes each such a sphere.
For a geodesic triangle with interior angles , the local Gauss-Bonnet theorem is
because its geodesic sides have zero geodesic curvature.
Triangulate a closed oriented surface into geodesic triangles, with edges and vertices. Summing the local formula, the angles around each vertex total , so
Since every triangular face has three edges and every edge belongs to two faces, . Hence
which is the global Gauss-Bonnet theorem.
For the sphere , the unit normal is . Its shape operator is, up to the conventional sign, on each tangent plane. Both principal curvatures therefore have magnitude , and the Gaussian curvature is
An octant has one eighth of the sphere's area:
Thus . Its three great-circle sides meet at three right angles, so
The two sides of the local Gauss-Bonnet formula agree directly.
For there is at most one. Two essential simple closed geodesics cannot form a geodesic bigon by Gauss-Bonnet theorem, so they are disjoint; the annulus between them would have and geodesic boundary, forcing , a contradiction. Thus multiple geodesics in the flat case are disjoint, while in the positive example they need not be.
The geodesic curvature is the tangential component of , namely up to orientation; a curve is geodesic when . Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a compact region says .
For , a flat cylinder has infinitely many parallel closed geodesics.
Gauss-Bonnet theorem gives the area of a curvature- triangle as . Split the regular polygon into congruent right triangles. If is a polygon half-angle, the right-triangle identity and part (a) give
The polygon area is . Rewriting yields
In the Poincare half-plane model, the Riemannian metric
assigns to a smooth curve the length
The metric is conformal to the Euclidean metric, so hyperbolic and Euclidean angles agree. Its area element is
The two geodesics from and to infinity are the vertical lines and , while the third side is the unit semicircle. The triangle lies above that semicircle, so its area is
Its interior angles are , , and zero at the ideal vertex, and hence
Triangulating a geodesic polygon with sides into triangles gives
the area of a hyperbolic geodesic polygon and the polygonal Gauss-Bonnet theorem.
For a positively oriented local parametrization with first fundamental form
the area element of a surface is
Under an orientation-preserving coordinate change, the Jacobian from cancels the inverse Jacobian in the square root of the metric determinant. Hence these local expressions agree and define a global two-form.
The Euler characteristic may be defined from any finite triangulation by
or equivalently by the alternating sum of the dimensions of the rational homology groups. Subdivision leaves unchanged, and the homological formula shows that it is a topological invariant, so the definition does not depend on the triangulation.
Give the boundary its induced orientation and parametrize it by arc length. If is its unit tangent and is the chosen unit normal to the surface, its signed geodesic curvature is
where is the surface covariant derivative. The Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a compact oriented surface with smooth boundary and no corners is
where is the Gaussian curvature.
Because and are isometric,
The two induced orientations on their common boundary are opposite. If
is computed with the boundary orientation from , then its value for is . Applying the Gauss-Bonnet theorem to the two halves gives
The equalities above imply . This is the isometric halves give zero total boundary geodesic curvature argument.
Every ambient isometry preserves the magnitude of geodesic curvature and sends to . Hence is constant along the connected curve by the transitive curve symmetry makes geodesic-curvature magnitude constant. If that constant were positive, continuity would force the signed to have one fixed sign, making its integral nonzero. Therefore . A curve has zero geodesic curvature exactly when it is a geodesic, so is geodesic.
After the sides are identified in pairs, the polygonal-schema Euler count gives one face, edges and some number of vertices. The Euler characteristic of a closed orientable genus- surface is , so
For genus two, take a regular octagon in the Poincare disc model and identify each side with its opposite side, with the orientation reversed along the boundary. One cyclic labelling is
The quotient has , , and , hence Euler characteristic and genus two. All eight vertices become one point, so smoothness requires their angles to sum to . Each interior angle is consequently
Equivalently, the hyperbolic polygon area formula shows that the regular hyperbolic octagon fundamental polygon has area
as required by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a genus-two surface of curvature .
The Polyakov action contains the dilaton coupling
For a constant dilaton , the Gauss-Bonnet theorem gives , so the path-integral weight contributes with string coupling . A connected closed oriented genus- worldsheet has . Including one conventional factor of for each of external closed-string vertices gives the string genus expansion
For four external states on the sphere, this is .
For a positively oriented simple closed curve bounding a disc on the unit sphere, the local Gauss-Bonnet theorem gives
Here , so
At fixed length , maximizing the enclosed area is therefore exactly the same as minimizing .
A hyperbolic triangle is bounded by three hyperbolic geodesic segments or rays. Its vertices may lie in the hyperbolic plane; an ideal vertex is their endpoint on the boundary at infinity. Every ideal angle is zero. Gauss-Bonnet theorem with curvature gives
so an all-ideal triangle has area .
For fixed admissible angles, hyperbolic trigonometry determines all three side lengths from the angles, for example
Thus two such triangles are congruent. An orientation-preserving isometry can send one chosen vertex and oriented tangent to the corresponding data of the other, and the determined side lengths and angles then send the entire triangle to it. Since the orientation-preserving isometry group is , represented by , the stated action is transitive.
Let be a compact oriented surface with piecewise smooth, positively oriented boundary. If are the signed exterior turning angles at its corners, the global Gauss-Bonnet theorem with boundary is
For a smooth boundary the corner sum is absent, and for a closed surface both boundary terms are absent.
Suppose that two closed geodesics and were disjoint. Under the usual convention that a closed geodesic curve is simple, the Jordan curve theorem on the sphere shows that they bound an annulus . Its Euler characteristic is zero. Give the induced orientation and apply the Gauss-Bonnet theorem:
Both boundary components are geodesics, so their geodesic curvature vanishes. It follows that
This is impossible because everywhere and has positive area. Hence the two closed geodesics must intersect, as summarized by the intersection of closed geodesics on a positively curved sphere.
A line segment has zero normal curvature in its tangent direction, impossible when Gaussian curvature is positive because both principal curvatures have the same nonzero sign. Two disjoint closed geodesics would bound an annulus. Applying Gauss-Bonnet theorem, its geodesic boundary contributes zero and , but , a contradiction.