Reference for the geometry of horospheres

2010-05-31T14:26:59Z

Dear all, I am looking for a reference to a proof of the following well-know fact (cited for example by B.Farb in ``Relatively hyperbolic groups'', Geom. Funct. Anal. 8 (1998), no. 5, 810--840).

Suppose $X$ is the universal covering of a negatively curved Riemannian manifold, let $O$ be an open horoball in $X$ and let $H=\partial O$ be the horospherical boundary of $O$. Also suppose that $\gamma\colon [0,1]\to X\setminus O$ is a rectifiable path such that $d(\gamma (t), H)\geq k>0$ for every $t\in [0,1]$, and let $\pi\colon X\setminus O\to H$ the (well-defined) nearest-point projection. Then, there exists $\alpha>0$ (only depending on the curvature of $X$) such that the length $L(\pi\circ\gamma)$ of $\pi\circ\gamma$ is bounded above by $e^{-\alpha k} L(\gamma)$.

Of course, this fact can be reduced to the computation of the Lipschitz constant of the projection of a horosphere onto another horosphere having the same basepoint. When $X$ is the real hyperbolic $n$-space, such a computation is very easy, and it is likely that the variable curvature case can be reduced to the hyperbolic case via some comparison theorem. However, I was wondering if there is some standard reference I could rely on.

Answer by Matthew Stover for Reference for the geometry of horospheres

2010-05-31T15:20:10Z

I think you can find this in Chapter II.8 of Bridson and Haefliger.

Answer by Igor Belegradek for Reference for the geometry of horospheres

2010-06-15T02:17:39Z

Try Geometry of horospheres by Heintze and Im Hof.

Reference for the geometry of horospheres - MathOverflow

Reference for the geometry of horospheres

Answer by Matthew Stover for Reference for the geometry of horospheres

Answer by Igor Belegradek for Reference for the geometry of horospheres