[Math] Distance in the Poincare Disk model of hyperbolic geometry

hyperbolic-geometry

I am trying to understand the Poincare Disk model of a hyperbolic geometry and how to measure distances. I found the equation for the distance between two points on the disk as:
$d^2 = (dx^2 + dy^2) / (1-x^2-y^2)^2$
Given two points on the disk, I am assuming that $dx$ is the difference in the euclidean $x$ coordinate of the points, and similar for $dy$. So, what are $x$ and $y$ in the formula? Also, I see some formulas online as:
$d^2 = 4(dx^2 + dy^2) / (1-x^2-y^2)^2$
I am not sure which one is correct.

Assuming that $X$ and $Y$ are coordinates of one of the points, I have tried a few examples, but can't get the math to work out. For instance, if $A = (0,0)$, $B = (0,.5)$, $C = (0,.75)$, then what are $d(A,B)$, $d(B,C)$, and $d(A,C)$? The value $d(A,B) + d(B,C)$ should equal $d(A,C)$, since they are on the same line, but I can't get this to work out. I get distances of $.666$, $.571$, and $1.714$ respectively.

MathWorld – Hyperbolic Metric

Best Answer

As others have indicated one has to distinguish a metric $(x,y)\mapsto d(x,y)$ which measures distances between points $x$, $y$ in a space $X$ and a Riemannian metric which tells us how lengths of curves $\gamma$ in a manifold $X$ should be computed.

In the complex plane we have the usual euclidean metric $d(z_1,z_2):=|z_2-z_1|$ and at the infinitesimal scale the Riemannian metric $$ds^2:=|dz|^2=dx^2+dy^2\ .$$ The latter formula says that the length of an arbitrary curve $$\gamma: \quad t\mapsto\bigl(x(t),y(t)\bigr)\qquad(a\leq t\leq b)$$ should be computed as $$L(\gamma)=\int_\gamma ds=\int_a^b\sqrt{x'^2(t)+y'^2(t)}\ dt = \int_a^b|z'(t)|\ dt\ .$$ This formula implies that the length of a segment $\sigma$ connecting two points $z_1$ and $z_2$ is just $|z_2-z_1|$.

On the "Poincare disc" $P$ we are given a priori only a Riemannian metric $$ds:= {|dz|\over 1-|z|^2}$$ (resp., $ds^2=\ldots$). This metric allows us to compute the lengths of arbitrary curves in $P$: $$L(\gamma)=\int_a^b{|z'(t)|\over1-|z(t)|^2}\ dt\ .$$ The particular definition of $ds$ is chosen such that this hyperbolic length is invariant under arbitrary conformal movements of $P$ and the curves therein.

A posteriori one can define a metric $d(\cdot,\cdot)$ on $P$ by letting the distance $d(z_1,z_2)$ between two points $z_1$, $z_2\in P$ be the hyperbolic length of the shortest curve $\gamma$ connecting $z_1$ and $z_2$. The actual carrying out of this idea shows that $d(z_1,z_2)$ can be written as an elementary function (using ${\rm artanh}$, etc.) in terms of $z_1$ and $z_2$.

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