Construction of nearly hyperbolic distance on punctured spheres

Abstract

We define a distance function on the bordered punctured disk $0<|z|\le 1/e$ in the complex plane, which is comparable with the hyperbolic distance of the punctured unit disk $0<|z|<1.$ As an application, we will construct a distance function on an $n$-times punctured sphere which is comparable with the hyperbolic distance. We also propose a comparable quantity which is not necessarily a distance function on the punctured sphere but easier to compute.