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Schwarz triangle function

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In mathematics, the Schwarz triangle tessellation was introduced by H. A. Schwarz as a way of tessellating the hyperbolic upper half plane by a Schwarz triangle, i.e. a geodesic triangle in the upper half plane with angles which are either 0 or of the form π over a positive integer greater than one. Through successive hyperbolic reflections in its sides, such a triangle generates a tessellation of the upper half plane (or the unit disk after composition with the Cayley transform). The hyperbolic refections generates a discrete group, with an orientation-preserving normal subgroup of index two. Each such tessellation yields a conformal mapping of the upper half plane onto the interior of the geodesic triangle, generalizing the Schwarz–Christoffel mapping, with the upper half plane replacing the complex plane. The corresponding inverse function, first defined by Schwarz, solved the problem of uniformization a hyperbolic triangle and is called the Schwarz triangle function.

Through the theory of complex ordinary differential equations with regular singular points and the Schwarzian derivative, the triangle function can be expressed as the quotient of two solutions of a hypergeometric differential equation with real coefficients and singular points at 0, 1 and ∞. By the Schwarz reflection principle, the reflection group induces an action on the two dimensional space of solutions. On the orientation-preserving normal subgroup, this two-dimensional representation corresponds to the monodromy of the ordinary differential equation and induces a group of Möbius transformations on quotients of hypergeometric functions.

As the inverse function of such a quotient, the triangle function is an automorphic function for this discrete group of Möbius transformations. This is a special case of a general scheme of Henri Poincaré that associates automorphic forms with ordinary differential equations with regular singular points. In the special case of ideal triangles, where all the angles are zero, the tessellation corresponds to the Farey tessellation and the triangle function yields the modular lambda function.


Conformal mapping of Schwarz triangles

In this section Schwarz's explicit conformal mapping from the unit disc or the upper half plane to the interior of a Schwarz triangle will be constructed as the ratio of solutions of a hypergeometric ordinary differential equation, following Carathéodory (1954, pp. 129–194), Nehari (1975, pp. 198–209, 308–332) and Hille (1976, pp. 371–401). The classical account of Ince (1944, pp. 389–395) has an account of the monodromy of second order complex order differential equations with regular singular points. The limiting case of ideal triangles, the Farey series and the modular lambda function is explained in Ahlfors (1966, pp. 254–274), Chandrasekharan (1985, pp. 108–121), Mumford, Series & Wright (2015) and Hardy & Wright (2008).

The Schwarz triangle function or Schwarz s-function is a function that conformally maps the upper half plane to a triangle in the upper half plane having lines or circular arcs for edges. Let πα, πβ, and πγ be the interior angles at the vertices of the triangle. If any of α, β, and γ are greater than zero, then the Schwarz triangle function can be given in terms of hypergeometric functions as:

where a = (1−α−β−γ)/2, b = (1−α+β−γ)/2, c = 1−α, a′ = ac + 1 = (1+α−β−γ)/2, b′ = bc + 1 = (1+α+β−γ)/2, and c′ = 2 − c = 1 + α. This mapping has singular points at z = 0, 1, and ∞, corresponding to the vertices of the triangle with angles πα, πγ, and πβ respectively. At these singular points,

This formula can be derived using the Schwarzian derivative.

This function can be used to map the upper half-plane to a spherical triangle on the Riemann sphere if α + β + γ > 1, or a hyperbolic triangle on the Poincaré disk if α + β + γ < 1. When α + β + γ = 1, then the triangle is a Euclidean triangle with straight edges: a = 0, , and the formula reduces to that given by the Schwarz–Christoffel transformation. In the special case of ideal triangles, where all the angles are zero, the triangle function yields the modular lambda function.

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^ Lee, Laurence (1976). Conformal Projections based on Elliptic Functions. Cartographica Monographs. Vol. 16. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780919870161. Chapters also published in The Canadian Cartographer. 13 (1). 1976.

Sources

Further reading

  • Ford, Lester R. (1951) [1929], Automorphic Functions, American Mathematical Society, ISBN 0821837419 {{citation}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  • Lehner, Joseph (1964), Discontinuous groups and automorphic functions, Mathematical Surveys, vol. 8, American Mathematical Society. (Note that Lehner has pointed out that his proof of Poincaré's polygon theorem is incomplete. He has subsequently recommended de Rham's 1971 exposition.)
  • Sansone, Giovanni; Gerretsen, Johan (1969), Lectures on the theory of functions of a complex variable. II: Geometric theory, Wolters-Noordhoff
  • Series, Caroline (1985), "The modular surface and continued fractions", Journal of the London Mathematical Society, 31: 69–80, doi:10.1112/jlms/s2-31.1.69
  • Thurston, William P. (1997), Silvio Levy (ed.), Three-dimensional geometry and topology. Vol. 1., Princeton Mathematical Series, vol. 35, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-08304-5