Subsets of regular surface homeomorphic to a disc

differential-geometrygeneral-topology

I am self-studying do Carmo's differential geometry of curves and surfaces. In several places (one of them is the definition of simple regions), he talks about subsets of regular surfaces that are homeomorphic to closed discs (the subsets). Formally, let $S$ a regular surface, let $R\subseteq S$, and let $D\subseteq \mathbb{R^2}$ a closed disc. Suppose $R$ is homeomorphic to $D$. Here is my question:

Do the above imply that the homeomorphism maps the boundary of $D$ (the circle) to the boundary of $R$ in $S$?

I think I can show this when $R$ is in a coordinate neighborhood, using Schonflies theorem and the fact that $D$ is simply connected. However, I don't know how to proceed when $R$ is not covered by any single coordinate neighborhood.

Best Answer

Let $\varphi :D\to R\subseteq S$ be the given homeomorphism and suppose by contradiction that $x_0$ is a point in the boundary of $D$ such that $\varphi (x_0)$ lies in the interior of $R$.

Pick a neighborhood $U$ of $\varphi (x_0)$ homeomorphic to an open disc (e.g. a coordinate neighborhood), and contained in $R$. Letting $V=\varphi ^{-1}(U)$ we have that $V$ is also homeomorphic to an open disc.

Consequently $V\setminus \{x_0\}$ is homeomorphic to a punctured disk and hence not simply conected. This is a contradiction because every open simply connected subset of $D$ remains simply connected once a point of the boundary of $D$ is removed from it.

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