Spherical, hyperbolic and other projective geometries: convexity, duality, transitions

Abstract

Since the end of the 19th century, and after the works of F. Klein and H. Poincaré, it is well known that models of elliptic geometry and hyperbolic geometry can be given using projective geometry, and that Euclidean geometry can be seen as a "limit" of both geometries. Then all the geometries that can be obtained in this way. Some of these geometries had a rich development, most remarkably hyperbolic geometry and the Lorentzian geometries of Minkowski, de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spaces, which in higher dimension have had large interest for a long time in mathematical physics and more precisely in General Relativity. Moreover, some degenerate spaces appear naturally in the picture, namely the co-Euclidean space (the space of hyperplanes of the Euclidean space), and the co-Minkowski space (that we will restrict to the space of space-like hyperplanes of Minkowski space), first because of duality reasons, and second because they appear as limits of degeneration of classical spaces. In fact, co-Minkowski space recently regained interest under the name half-pipe geometry. The purpose of the present paper is to provide a survey on the properties of these spaces, especially in dimensions 2 and 3, from the point of view of projective geometry. Even with this perspective, the paper does not aim to be an exhaustive treatment. Instead it is focused on the aspects which concern convex subsets and their duality, degeneration of geometries and some properties of surfaces in three-dimensional spaces. The presentation is intended to be elementary, hence containing no deep proofs of theorems, but trying to proceed by accessible observations and elementary proofs.