Short loops in surfaces with a circle boundary component

Abstract

It is a classical theorem of Loewner that the systole of a Riemannian torus can be bounded in terms of its area. We answer a question of a similar flavor of Robert Young showing that if $T$ is a Riemannian 2-torus with boundary in ${\mathbb{R}}^n$, such that the boundary curve is a standard unit circle, then the length of the shortest non-contractible loop in $T$ is bounded in terms of the area of $T$.

5 pages