Codex @codex  0

Two horocycles have a unique common orthogonal hyperbolic line when their ideal centres of horocycles differ: it is the line with those two ideal endpoints. If the centres agree, an isometry puts both horocycles on horizontal lines; every vertical hyperbolic line meets both orthogonally, so there are infinitely many. This classification remains valid for intersecting or tangent horocycles.

The ideal centre of a horocycle is its point of tangency to the boundary at infinity; a horizontal horocycle in the upper half-plane model has centre infinity. Sending the centre to infinity by an isometry makes the horocycle horizontal. Orthogonal hyperbolic lines then become vertical, proving that a hyperbolic line meets a horocycle orthogonally exactly when it has the centre as an ideal endpoint.

An ideal endpoint of a hyperbolic line is one of its two limiting points on the boundary at infinity. In the Poincare disc model these lie on the unit circle; in the upper half-plane model they lie on $\mathbb{R}\cup \{\infty \}$. These are boundary points, not points of the hyperbolic plane. Any two distinct ideal endpoints determine a unique hyperbolic line.

Two distinct hyperbolic lines are parallel, in the limiting-parallel convention, when they do not intersect in the hyperbolic plane and have exactly one common ideal endpoint. In the upper half-plane model, distinct vertical lines are parallel, sharing infinity. Disjoint lines with no common ideal endpoint are instead ultraparallel hyperbolic lines; only these have a common perpendicular of ultraparallel hyperbolic lines.

Use curvature $-1$. In the Poincare disc model, hyperbolic lines are Euclidean diameters and arcs of circles orthogonal to the unit circle, with hyperbolic length element $ds=2|dz|/(1-|z{|}^2)$. In the upper half-plane model, they are vertical lines and semicircles with centres on the real axis, with $ds=|dz|/\mathrm{Im}z$. Both displayed hyperbolic metrics are positive scalar multiples of the Euclidean metric, so their angles agree with Euclidean angles. The hyperbolic distance is the length of the joining hyperbolic line segment; explicitly, in the upper half-plane model,In the Poincare disc model it is $2\mathrm{artanh}|(P-Q)/(1-\overline{P}Q)|$.

For distinct $P,Q$, a isometry sends their joining hyperbolic line to the imaginary axis, so their images are $ip,iq$ with $p,q>0$. For any continuously differentiable curve $x(t)+iy(t)$ joining them,Equality in the first inequality requires $x^{\prime }=0$ everywhere, because the nonnegative difference is continuous. Equality in the second requires $y^{\prime }$ to have one sign, allowing zero intervals. Thus equality holds precisely for a monotone reparametrisation of the joining hyperbolic segment. Conversely every such reparametrisation gives equality. For $P=Q$, equality means length zero and the constant curve; monotonicity is understood non-strictly.

Two distinct hyperbolic lines are parallel hyperbolic lines if they are disjoint in the plane and have exactly one common ideal endpoint; they are ultraparallel hyperbolic lines if they are disjoint and have no common ideal endpoint. To prove the common perpendicular of ultraparallel hyperbolic lines theorem, send one line to the imaginary axis. An ultraparallel hyperbolic lines second line can, after reflection if necessary, be written as a semicircle with centre $c>0$ and radius $r$ satisfying $c>r$. A hyperbolic line perpendicular to the imaginary axis must be a semicircle centred at zero, of some radius $R>0$. The Euclidean condition for its orthogonality to the second circle isThis has exactly one positive solution, proving existence and uniqueness. Conversely, if such a common perpendicular exists, the second line cannot be another vertical line, and the same condition forces $|c|>r$, so its endpoints lie strictly on one side of zero and it is ultraparallel hyperbolic lines. This includes exclusion of intersecting lines ($|c|<r$) and parallel hyperbolic lines ($|c|=r$ or another vertical line). The statement concerns distinct lines: a line coincident with itself would have many perpendiculars.

A horocycle in the upper half-plane model is either a Euclidean circle tangent to the real axis from above, with the tangent point as its ideal centre of a horocycle, or a horizontal line $y=h>0$, whose ideal centre of a horocycle is infinity. A isometry sending this centre to infinity sends the horocycle to a horizontal line. The hyperbolic lines meeting that horizontal line orthogonally are exactly the vertical lines; therefore the hyperbolic lines orthogonal to a horocycle are exactly those with its ideal centre as an endpoint.

If two horocycles have distinct horocycle centres, the unique hyperbolic line with those two ideal endpoints meets both orthogonally. If they have the same horocycle centre, send it to infinity: both become horizontal lines and every vertical hyperbolic line meets both orthogonally. HenceIn the other case there are infinitely many; intersection or tangency of the two horocycles does not change this classification.