Lipshitz maps from surfaces

Abstract.

We give a simple procedure to estimate the smallest Lipshitz constant of a degree 1 map from a Riemannian 2-sphere to the unit 2-sphere, up to a factor of 10. Using this procedure, we are able to prove several inequalities involving this Lipshitz constant. For instance, if the smallest Lipshitz constant is at least 1, then the Riemannian 2-sphere has Uryson 1-width less than 12 and contains a closed geodesic of length less than 160. Similarly, if a closed oriented Riemannian surface does not admit a degree 1 map to the unit 2-sphere with Lipshitz constant 1, then it contains a closed homologically non-trivial curve of length less than 4π. On the other hand, we give examples of high genus surfaces with arbitrarily large Uryson 1-width which do not admit a map of non-zero degree to the unit sphere with Lipshitz constant 1.