Upper Half-plane

In mathematics, the upper half-plane H is the set of complex numbers with positive imaginary part y:

The term is associated with a common visualization of complex numbers with points in the plane endowed with Cartesian coordinates, with the Y-axis pointing upwards: the "upper half-plane" corresponds to the half-plane above the X-axis.

It is the domain of many functions of interest in complex analysis, especially modular forms. The lower half-plane, defined by y < 0, is equally good, but less used by convention. The open unit disk D (the set of all complex numbers of absolute value less than one) is equivalent by a conformal mapping (see "Poincaré metric"), meaning that it is usually possible to pass between H and D.

It also plays an important role in hyperbolic geometry, where the Poincaré half-plane model provides a way of examining hyperbolic motions. The Poincaré metric provides a hyperbolic metric on the space.

The uniformization theorem for surfaces states that the upper half-plane is the universal covering space of surfaces with constant negative Gaussian curvature.