# Gromov Hyperbolicity

16 January 2018

### Abstract

A geodesic metric space is Gromov hyperbolic if all its geodesic triangles are thin, i.e., every side is contained in a fixed thickening of the two other sides. While this definition looks innocuous, it has proved extremely important and versatile in modern geometry since its introduction by Gromov. We formalize the basic classical properties of Gromov hyperbolic spaces, notably the Morse lemma asserting that quasigeodesics are close to geodesics, the invariance of hyperbolicity under quasi-isometries, we define and study the Gromov boundary and its associated distance, and prove that a quasi-isometry between Gromov hyperbolic spaces extends to a homeomorphism of the boundaries. We also prove a less classical theorem, by Bonk and Schramm, asserting that a Gromov hyperbolic space embeds isometrically in a geodesic Gromov-hyperbolic space. As the original proof uses a transfinite sequence of Cauchy completions, this is an interesting formalization exercise. Along the way, we introduce basic material on isometries, quasi-isometries, Lipschitz maps, geodesic spaces, the Hausdorff distance, the Cauchy completion of a metric space, and the exponential on extended real numbers.