Proof of the Hopf-Rinow Theorem
The Hopf-Rinow theorem connects metric completeness, geodesic completeness, and compactness properties of Riemannian manifolds. It is a cornerstone of global Riemannian geometry.
Statement
Let be a connected Riemannian manifold. The following are equivalent:
- is complete as a metric space (every Cauchy sequence converges).
- Every geodesic can be extended to all of (geodesic completeness).
- For some point , the exponential map is defined on all of .
- Every closed bounded subset of is compact (Heine-Borel property).
Moreover, if any of these holds, then for any two points , there exists a minimizing geodesic from to (i.e., a geodesic whose length equals ).
Proof
We prove the key implications.
(3) (4) and the existence of minimizing geodesics. Fix and assume is defined on all of . Let with . We show there exists a minimizing geodesic from to .
Choose a small such that is a diffeomorphism on . On the geodesic sphere , by compactness, there exists a point minimizing .
Claim: .
Any path from to must cross , and the shortest way to reach from is the radial geodesic of length . So . The reverse inequality follows from the triangle inequality.
Let be the unit-speed geodesic from through . Define . Then and is closed. The key step: if , repeat the argument at to show for small . This shows , so satisfies and , hence , and is minimizing.
For the Heine-Borel property: the closed ball is the continuous image of a compact set, hence compact. Any closed bounded set is a closed subset of some , hence compact.
(4) (1): Heine-Borel implies completeness in any metric space.
(1) (2): If a geodesic cannot be extended past time , then for is Cauchy (since ), so it converges to a limit . By the local existence of geodesics near , we can extend past , contradiction.
(2) (3): Immediate from the definition of the exponential map.
Applications
- , , , and any compact Riemannian manifold are complete.
- An open ball with the Euclidean metric is not complete (geodesics reach the boundary in finite time).
- Any closed submanifold of (with the induced metric) is complete.
In general relativity, the analogue of geodesic completeness is crucial: a spacetime is geodesically incomplete if some freely falling observer reaches the "edge of spacetime" in finite proper time. The Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems show that, under natural energy conditions, spacetimes are generically geodesically incomplete, implying the existence of singularities (like black holes or the Big Bang).