I've managed to confuse myself with cones and deficit angles. Let's consider a conical defect in 2 dimensions. So the metric is the usual one in polar coordinates,
ds2=dr2+r2dϕ2,
except that now ϕ∼ϕ+2π(1−α). For α=0, the is just flat space. When α≠0, there is a singularity in the curvature, and for example the Ricci scalar acquires a delta function:
R(x)=4παδ(2)x,x′,
where x′ is the location of the conical defect. Now if we use the Gauss-Bonnet theorem (remembering that in 2 dimensions R=K/2, where K is the Gaussian curvature), we can relate the deficit angle to the Euler characteristic (neglecting any boundary terms)
χ=α.
So my confusion now is: what does it mean to have α=1, which is to say that the deficit angle is 2π? It seems weird that I can remove the whole angle and still have a 2 dimensional space. Since I don't have much intuition for what it means to remove 2π, I looked up what manifolds have χ=1, I find things like the disk (which has a boundary), and the real projective plane, which is S2/Z2 and non-orientable.
So what space is a cone with deficit angle 2π? (Bonus question: what space has deficit angle 4π, the Euler formula would suggest a sphere?)
This post imported from StackExchange Physics at 2015-11-20 17:16 (UTC), posted by SE-user Surgical Commander