COMPACTNESS OF SPACES OF CONVEX AND SIMPLE QUADRILATERALS

Abstract

The space of shapes of quadrilaterals can be identified with $\mathbb{CP}^{2}$. We deal with the subset of $\mathbb{CP}^{2}$ corresponding to convex quadrilaterals and the subset which corresponds to simple (that is, without self-intersections) quadrilaterals. We provide a complete description of the topological closures in $\mathbb{CP}^{2}$ of both spaces. Although the interior of each space is homeomorphic to a disjoint union $\mathbb{R}^{4}\sqcup \mathbb{R}^{4}$, their closures are topologically different. In particular, the boundary of the space corresponding to convex quadrilaterals is homeomorphic to a pair of three-dimensional spheres glued along a Möbius strip while the boundary of the space corresponding to simple quadrilaterals is more complicated.