Surfaces of Rotation with Constant Extrinsic Curvature in a Conformally Flat 3-Space

In this work, we relate the extrinsic curvature of surfaces with respect to the Euclidean metric and any metrics that are conformal to the Euclidean metric. We introduce the space ${\mathbb{E}_3}$ ??the 3-dimensional real vector space equipped with a conformally flat metric that is a solution of the Einstein equation. We characterize the surfaces of rotation with constant extrinsic curvature in the space ${\mathbb{E}_3}$ . We obtain a one-parameter family of two-sheeted hyperboloids that are complete surfaces with zero extrinsic curvature in ${\mathbb{E}_3}$ . Moreover, we obtain a one-parameter family of cones and show that there exists another one-parameter family of complete surfaces of rotation with zero extrinsic curvature in ${\mathbb{E}_3}$ . Moreover, we show that there exist complete surfaces with constant negative extrinsic curvature in ${\mathbb{E}_3}$ . As an application we prove that there exist complete surfaces with Gaussian curvature K ?? ? ?? < 0, in contrast with Efimov??s Theorem for the Euclidean space, and Schlenker??s Theorem for the hyperbolic space.     

Translation surfaces of constant curvatures in a simply isotropic space

In this paper we describe, up to a congruence, translation surfaces in a simply isotropic space having constant isotropic Gaussian or mean curvature. It turns out that, contrary to the Euclidean case, there exist translation surfaces with constant Gaussian curvature \(K\ne 0\) and translation surfaces with constant mean curvature \(H\ne 0\) that are not cylindrical. Furthermore, we investigate a class of Weingarten translation surfaces.     

An isoperimetric deficit upper bound of the convex domain in a surface of constant curvature

In this paper, we give a reverse analog of the Bonnesen-style inequality of a convex domain in the surface $ \mathbb{X} $ _∈ of constant curvature ∈, that is, an isoperimetric deficit upper bound of the convex domain in $ \mathbb{X} $ _∈ . The result is an analogue of the known Bottema’s result of 1933 in the Euclidean plane $ \mathbb{E} $ ².     

Geometry of Normal Graphs in Euclidean Space and Applications to the Penrose Inequality in Minkowski

The Penrose inequality in Minkowski is a geometric inequality relating the total outer null expansion and the area of closed, connected and spacelike codimension-two surfaces \({{\bf \mathcal{S}}}\) in the Minkowski spacetime, subject to an additional convexity assumption. In a recent paper, Brendle and Wang A (Gibbons–Penrose inequality for surfaces in Schwarzschild Spacetime. arXiv:1303.1863, 2013) find a sufficient condition for the validity of this Penrose inequality in terms of the geometry of the orthogonal projection of \({{\bf \mathcal{S}}}\) onto a constant time hyperplane. In this work, we study the geometry of hypersurfaces in n-dimensional Euclidean space which are normal graphs over other surfaces and relate the intrinsic and extrinsic geometry of the graph with that of the base hypersurface. These results are used to rewrite Brendle and Wang’s condition explicitly in terms of the time height function of \({{\bf \mathcal{S}}}\) over a hyperplane and the geometry of the projection of \({{\bf \mathcal{S}}}\) along its past null cone onto this hyperplane. We also include, in Appendix, a self-contained summary of known and new results on the geometry of projections along the Killing direction of codimension two-spacelike surfaces in a strictly static spacetime.     

Generalized Rotation Surfaces in {\mathbb E^4}

In the present study we consider generalized rotation surfaces imbedded in an Euclidean space of four dimensions. We also give some special examples of these surfaces in ${\mathbb E^4}$ . Further, the curvature properties of these surfaces are investigated. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for generalized rotation surfaces to become pseudo-umbilical. We also show that every general rotation surface is Chen surface in ${\mathbb E^4}$ . Finally we give some examples of generalized rotation surfaces in ${\mathbb E^4}$ .     

Helicoidal surfaces satisfying {\Delta ^{II}\mathbf{G}=f(\mathbf{G}+C)}

In this paper, we study helicoidal surfaces without parabolic points in Euclidean 3-space \({\mathbb{R} ^{3}}\), satisfying the condition \({\Delta ^{II}\mathbf{G}=f(\mathbf{G}+C)}\), where \({\Delta ^{II}}\) is the Laplace operator with respect to the second fundamental form, f is a smooth function on the surface and C is a constant vector. Our main results state that helicoidal surfaces without parabolic points in \({ \mathbb{R} ^{3}}\) which satisfy the condition \({\Delta ^{II} \mathbf{G}=f(\mathbf{G}+C)}\), coincide with helicoidal surfaces with non-zero constant Gaussian curvature.     

Minimal Translation Surfaces in Euclidean Space

A translation surface in Euclidean space is a surface that is the sum of two regular curves \(\alpha \) and \(\beta \). In this paper we characterize all minimal translation surfaces. In the case that \(\alpha \) and \(\beta \) are non-planar curves, we prove that the curvature \(\kappa \) and the torsion \(\tau \) of both curves must satisfy the equation \(\kappa ^2 \tau = C\) where C is constant. We show that, up to a rigid motion and a dilation in the Euclidean space and, up to reparametrizations of the curves generating the surfaces, all minimal translation surfaces are described by two real parameters \(a,b\in \mathbb {R}\) where the surface is of the form \(\phi (s,t)=\beta _{a,b}(s)+\beta _{a,b}(t)\).     

Wintgen Ideal Surfaces in Four-dimensional Neutral Indefinite Space Form {R^4_2(c)}

For an oriented space-like surface M in a four-dimensional indefinite space form ${R^4_2(c)}$ , there is a Wintgen type inequality; namely, the Gauss curvature K, the normal curvature K ^D and mean curvature vector H of M in ${R^4_2(c)}$ satisfy the general inequality: ${K+K^D \geq \langle H,H \rangle+c}$ . An oriented space-like surface in ${R^4_2(c)}$ is called Wintgen ideal if it satisfies the equality case of the inequality identically. In this paper, we study Wintgen ideal surfaces in ${R^4_2(c)}$ . In particular, we classify Wintgen ideal surfaces in ${R^4_2(c)}$ with constant Gauss and normal curvatures. We also completely classify Wintgen ideal surfaces in ${\mathbb E^4_2}$ satisfying |K| = |K ^D | identically.     

Factorable surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean and Lorentzian spaces satisfying Δr i ?=?λ i r i

In this paper we classify the factorable surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space ${\mathbb{E}^{3}}$ and Lorentzian ${\mathbb{E}_{1}^{3}}$ under the condition ??r _i ?=??? _i r _i , where ${\lambda_{i}\in\mathbb{R}}$ and ?? denotes the Laplace operator and we obtain the complete classification for those ones.     

Spinorial representation of surfaces into 4-dimensional space forms

In this paper we give a geometrically invariant spinorial representation of surfaces in four-dimensional space forms. In the Euclidean space, we obtain a representation formula which generalizes the Weierstrass representation formula of minimal surfaces. We also obtain as particular cases the spinorial characterizations of surfaces in $\mathbb R ^3$ and in $S^3$ given by Friedrich and by Morel.     

Reverse Bonnesen style inequalities in a surface \mathbb{X}_\varepsilon ^2 of constant curvature

We investigate the isoperimetric deficit upper bound, that is, the reverse Bonnesen style inequality for the convex domain in a surface $\mathbb{X}_\varepsilon ^2$ of constant curvature ? via the containment measure of a convex domain to contain another convex domain in integral geometry. We obtain some reverse Bonnesen style inequalities that extend the known Bottema’s result in the Euclidean plane $\mathbb{E}^2$ .     

Translation surfaces in the 3-dimensional space satisfying Δ III r i = μ i r i

In this paper we study the translation surfaces in the 3-dimensional Euclidean and Lorentz-Minkowski space under the condition ${\Delta ^{III}r_{i} = \mu _{i}r_{i},\mu _{i} \in \mathbb{R}}$ , where Δ ^III denotes the Laplacian of the surface with respect to the third fundamental form III. We show that in both spaces a translation surface satisfying the preceding relation is a surface of Scherk.     

Volume in General Metric Spaces

A central question in the geometry of finite metric spaces is how well can an arbitrary metric space be “faithfully preserved” by a mapping into Euclidean space. In this paper we present an algorithmic embedding which obtains a new strong measure of faithful preservation: not only does it (approximately) preserve distances between pairs of points, but also the volume of any set of \(k\) points. Such embeddings are known as volume preserving embeddings. We provide the first volume preserving embedding that obtains constant average volume distortion for sets of any fixed size. Moreover, our embedding provides constant bounds on all bounded moments of the volume distortion while maintaining the best possible worst-case volume distortion. Feige, in his seminal work on volume preserving embeddings defined the volume of a set \(S = \{v_1, \ldots , v_k \}\) of points in a general metric space: the product of the distances from \(v_i\) to \(\{ v_1, \dots , v_{i-1} \}\) , normalized by \(\tfrac{1}{(k-1)!}\) , where the ordering of the points is that given by Prim’s minimum spanning tree algorithm. Feige also related this notion to the maximal Euclidean volume that a Lipschitz embedding of \(S\) into Euclidean space can achieve. Syntactically this definition is similar to the computation of volume in Euclidean spaces, which however is invariant to the order in which the points are taken. We show that a similar robustness property holds for Feige’s definition: the use of any other order in the product affects volume \(^{1/(k-1)}\) by only a constant factor. Our robustness result is of independent interest as it presents a new competitive analysis for the greedy algorithm on a variant of the online Steiner tree problem where the cost of buying an edge is logarithmic in its length. This robustness property allows us to obtain our results on volume preserving embedding.     

Some Recent Developments on Hopf��s Holomorphic Form

Hopf??s theorem on surfaces in ${\mathbb{R}^3}$ with constant mean curvature (Hopf in Math Nach 4:232?C249, 1950-51) was a turning point in the study of such surfaces. In recent years, Hopf-type theorems appeared in various ambient spaces, (Abresch and Rosenberg in Acta Math 193:141?C174, 2004 and Abresch and Rosenberg in Mat Contemp Sociedade Bras Mat 28:283-298, 2005). The simplest case is the study of surfaces with parallel mean curvature vector in ${M_k^n \times \mathbb{R}, n \ge 2}$ , where ${M_k^n}$ is a complete, simply-connected Riemannian manifold with constant sectional curvature k ?? 0. The case n?=?2 was solved in Abresch and Rosenberg 2004. Here we describe some new results for arbitrary n.     

The Funk and Hilbert geometries for spaces of constant curvature

The goal of this paper is to introduce and to study analogues of the Euclidean Funk and Hilbert metrics on open convex subsets of the hyperbolic space $\mathbb H ^n$ H n and of the sphere $S^n$ S n . We highlight some striking similarities among the three cases (Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic) which hold at least at a formal level. The proofs of the basic properties of the classical Funk metric on subsets of $\mathbb R ^n$ R n use similarity properties of Euclidean triangles which of course do not hold in the non-Euclidean cases. Transforming the side lengths of triangles using hyperbolic and circular functions and using some non-Euclidean trigonometric formulae, the Euclidean similarity techniques are transported into the non-Euclidean worlds. We start by giving three representations of the Funk metric in each of the non-Euclidean cases, which parallel known representations for the Euclidean case. The non-Euclidean Funk metrics are shown to be Finslerian, and the associated Finsler norms are described. We then study their geodesics. The Hilbert geometry of convex sets in the non-Euclidean constant curvature spaces $S^n$ S n and $\mathbb H ^n$ H n is then developed by using the properties of the Funk metric and by introducing a non-Euclidean cross ratio. In the case of Euclidean (respectively spherical, hyperbolic) geometry, the Euclidean (respectively spherical, hyperbolic) geodesics are Funk and Hilbert geodesics. This leads to a formulation and a discussion of Hilbert’s Problem IV in the non-Euclidean settings. Projection maps between the spaces $\mathbb R ^n, \mathbb H ^n$ R n , H n and the upper hemisphere establish equivalences between the Hilbert geometries of convex sets in the three spaces of constant curvature, but such an equivalence does not hold for Funk geometries.     

On Quadratic Differentials and Twisted Normal Maps of Surfaces in {\mathbb{S}^{2} \times\mathbb{R}} and {\mathbb{H}^{2} \times\mathbb{R}}

Given a Lie group G with a bi-invariant metric and a compact Lie subgroup K, Bittencourt and Ripoll used the homogeneous structure of quotient spaces to define a Gauss map ${\mathcal{N}:M^{n}\rightarrow{\mathbb{S}}}$ on any hypersupersurface ${M^{n}\looparrowright G/K}$ , where ${{\mathbb{S}}}$ is the unit sphere of the Lie algebra of G. It is proved in Bittencourt and Ripoll (Pacific J Math 224:45–64, 2006) that M ⁿ having constant mean curvature (CMC) is equivalent to ${\mathcal{N}}$ being harmonic, a generalization of a Ruh–Vilms theorem for submanifolds in the Euclidean space. In particular, when n = 2, the induced quadratic differential ${\mathcal{Q}_{\mathcal{N}}:=(\mathcal{N}^{\ast}g)^{2,0}}$ is holomorphic on CMC surfaces of G/K. In this paper, we take ${G/K={\mathbb{S}}^{2}\times{\mathbb{R}}}$ and compare ${\mathcal{Q}_{\mathcal{N}}}$ with the Abresch–Rosenberg differential ${\mathcal{Q}}$ , also holomorphic for CMC surfaces. It is proved that ${\mathcal{Q}=\mathcal{Q}_{\mathcal{N}}}$ , after showing that ${\mathcal{N}}$ is the twisted normal given by (1.5) herein. Then we define the twisted normal for surfaces in ${{\mathbb{H}}^{2}\times{\mathbb{R}}}$ and prove that ${\mathcal{Q}=\mathcal{Q}_{\mathcal{N}}}$ as well. Within the unified model for the two product spaces, we compute the tension field of ${\mathcal{N}}$ and extend to surfaces in ${{\mathbb{H}}^{2}\times{\mathbb{R}}}$ the equivalence between the CMC property and the harmonicity of ${\mathcal{N}.}$      

Darboux transforms and simple factor dressing of constant mean curvature surfaces

We define a transformation on harmonic maps ${N:\,M \to S^2}$ from a Riemann surface M into the 2-sphere which depends on a parameter ${\mu \in \mathbb{C}_*}$ , the so-called μ-Darboux transformation. In the case when the harmonic map N is the Gauss map of a constant mean curvature surface ${f:\,M \to \mathbb{R}^3}$ and μ is real, the Darboux transformation of ?N is the Gauss map of a classical Darboux transform of f. More generally, for all parameter ${\mu \in \mathbb{C}_*}$ the transformation on the harmonic Gauss map of f is induced by a (generalized) Darboux transformation on f. We show that this operation on harmonic maps coincides with simple factor dressing, and thus generalize results on classical Darboux transforms of constant mean curvature surfaces (Hertrich-Jeromin and Pedit Doc Math J DMV 2:313–333, 1997; Burstall Integrable systems, geometry, and topology, 2006; Inoguchi and Kobayashi Int J Math 16(2):101–110, 2005): every μ-Darboux transform is a simple factor dressing, and vice versa.     

A Note on the Cops and Robber Game on Graphs Embedded in Non-Orientable Surfaces

We consider the two-player, complete information game of Cops and Robber played on undirected, finite, reflexive graphs. A number of cops and one robber are positioned on vertices and take turns in sliding along edges. The cops win if, after a move, a cop and the robber are on the same vertex. The minimum number of cops needed to catch the robber on a graph is called the cop number of that graph. Let c(g) be the supremum over all cop numbers of graphs embeddable in a closed orientable surface of genus g, and likewise ${\tilde c(g)}$ for non-orientable surfaces. It is known (Andreae, 1986) that, for a fixed surface, the maximum over all cop numbers of graphs embeddable in this surface is finite. More precisely, Quilliot (1985) showed that c(g) ≤ 2g + 3, and Schröder (2001) sharpened this to ${c(g)\le \frac32g + 3}$ . In his paper, Andreae gave the bound ${\tilde c(g) \in O(g)}$ with a weak constant, and posed the question whether a stronger bound can be obtained. Nowakowski & Schröder (1997) obtained ${\tilde c(g) \le 2g+1}$ . In this short note, we show ${\tilde c(g) \leq c(g-1)}$ , for any g ≥ 1. As a corollary, using Schröder’s results, we obtain the following: the maximum cop number of graphs embeddable in the projective plane is 3, the maximum cop number of graphs embeddable in the Klein Bottle is at most 4, ${\tilde c(3) \le 5}$ , and ${\tilde c(g) \le \frac32g + 3/2}$ for all other g.     

Branched covers of the sphere and the prime-degree conjecture

To a branched cover ${\widetilde{\Sigma} \to \Sigma}$ between closed, connected, and orientable surfaces, one associates a branch datum, which consists of Σ and ${\widetilde{\Sigma}}$ , the total degree d, and the partitions of d given by the collections of local degrees over the branching points. This datum must satisfy the Riemann–Hurwitz formula. A candidate surface cover is an abstract branch datum, a priori not coming from a branched cover, but satisfying the Riemann– Hurwitz formula. The old Hurwitz problem asks which candidate surface covers are realizable by branched covers. It is now known that all candidate covers are realizable when Σ has positive genus, but not all are when Σ is the 2-sphere. However, a long-standing conjecture asserts that candidate covers with prime degree are realizable. To a candidate surface cover, one can associate one ${\widetilde {X} \dashrightarrow X}$ between 2-orbifolds, and in Pascali and Petronio (Trans Am Math Soc 361:5885–5920, 2009), we have completely analyzed the candidate surface covers such that either X is bad, spherical, or Euclidean, or both X and ${\widetilde{X}}$ are rigid hyperbolic orbifolds, thus also providing strong supporting evidence for the prime-degree conjecture. In this paper, using a variety of different techniques, we continue this analysis, carrying it out completely for the case where X is hyperbolic and rigid and ${\widetilde{X}}$ has a 2-dimensional Teichmüller space. We find many more realizable and non-realizable candidate covers, providing more support for the prime-degree conjecture.     

Weakly Convex Biharmonic Hypersurfaces in Nonpositive Curvature Space Forms are Minimal

A submanifold M ^m of a Euclidean space R ^m+p is said to have harmonic mean curvature vector field if ${\Delta \vec{H}=0}$ , where ${\vec{H}}$ is the mean curvature vector field of ${M\hookrightarrow R^{m+p}}$ and Δ is the rough Laplacian on M. There is a famous conjecture named after Bangyen Chen which states that submanifolds of Euclidean spaces with harmonic mean curvature vector fields are minimal. In this paper we prove that weakly convex hypersurfaces (i.e. hypersurfaces whose principle curvatures are nonnegative) with harmonic mean curvature vector fields in Euclidean spaces are minimal. Furthermore we prove that weakly convex biharmonic hypersurfaces in nonpositively curved space forms are minimal.