Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2005 iii Paper 86 2 Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Use the curvature-minus-one normalization of the hyperbolic metric:The associated distance is . A connected Riemann surface has its complete canonical Poincare metric on a Riemann surface precisely when its universal cover is conformally the unit disc. By the uniformization theorem, the other simply connected covering types are the complex plane and Riemann sphere. Disc automorphisms preserve , as direct differentiation of shows; therefore the metric descends through the deck group. This is the uniformization notion of hyperbolicity, not the different potential-theoretic Green-function classification.
First prove the needed Schwarz lemma. If is holomorphic and , then extends holomorphically at zero. On its modulus is at most . The maximum modulus principle and give and .
Write . Conjugating by the source and target disc automorphisms, fixes zero. Applying the derivative bound givesIntegrate along any piecewise smooth path and then take the infimum of lengths: . This proves the Schwarz-Pick theorem. Contraction means nonexpansion, not a uniform Lipschitz constant strictly smaller than one; automorphisms preserve all distances.
If both and have disc universal covers, lift to through . The disc is simply connected, so the lift exists, and it is holomorphic because the covering maps are local biholomorphisms. Both covering maps are local hyperbolic isometries. The disc contraction therefore descends to and, by the path-length argument, . If only is known to have a hyperbolic metric, a nonconstant forces to have one too: otherwise lift from the plane or sphere universal cover of to the disc cover of . A bounded entire function is constant by the Liouville theorem, and a holomorphic map from the compact sphere into the disc is constant by the maximum modulus principle. Thus a nonconstant map into a hyperbolic surface is distance-nonincreasing between the canonical hyperbolic metrics; a nonhyperbolic source admits only constant such maps.
For the prescribed point, Schwarz-Pick theorem gives . Thereforeis holomorphic after filling the removable singularity at , and . Inverting the target automorphism provesConversely every holomorphic with this bound gives an admissible disc map: , its inverse target automorphism remains in the disc, and the denominator cannot vanish.
Fix and put . The possible intermediate values fill , since constant choices , , attain them all. Thus the one-point value region of a holomorphic disc map is . Completing the square in gives its Euclidean centre and radius:This closed disc lies strictly inside the unit disc because . For it degenerates to the single point . Its boundary is attainable by unimodular constant ; requiring to map into the open disc does not remove that boundary.