1. Introduction in These Notes We Shall Prove Some of the Basic Facts Concerning Hadamard Spaces (Metric Spaces of Non-Positive Curvature)
1. Introduction In these notes we shall prove some of the basic facts concerning Hadamard spaces (metric spaces of non-positive curvature). In particular we shall give a detailed proof of the Cartan-Hadamard theorem, which applies even to exotic cases such as non-positively curved orbifolds. A few remarks about material not covered here. We shall say nothing about Riemannian manifolds of non-positive curvature. We shall not touch on any results requiring assumptions about negative (as opposed to non-positive) curvature. And we shall say very little about groups which act on Hadamard spaces. 2. Basic Definitions Definition 2.1. A Hadamard space is a nonempty complete metric space (X, d) with the property that for any pair of points x, y ∈ X, there exists a point m ∈ X such that d(x, y)2 d(z, x)2 + d(z, y)2 d(z, m)2 + ≤ 4 2 for any z ∈ X. 2 2 d(x,y) Applying the definition with z = x, we deduce that d(x, m) ≤ 4 , so that d(x,y) d(x,y) d(x, m) ≤ 2 . Similarly d(y, m) ≤ 2 . Thus d(x, m) + d(y, m) ≤ d(x, y). By d(x,y) the triangle inequality, equality must hold, so that d(x, m) = d(y, m) = 2 . We say that m is the midpoint of x and y. Furthermore, m is uniquely determined 0 0 d(x,y) by this property. Indeed, suppose that d(x, m ) = d(y, m ) = 2 . Applying the definition with z = m0, we deduce that d(m, m0) ≤ 0, so that m = m0.
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