Uniqueness of \mathbb{C}^{ * } - and \mathbb{C}_{{\text{ + }}} -actions on Gizatullin Surfaces

A Gizatullin surface is a normal affine surface V over $ \mathbb{C} $ , which can be completed by a zigzag; that is, by a linear chain of smooth rational curves. In this paper we deal with the question of uniqueness of $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ -actions and $ \mathbb{A}^{{\text{1}}} $ -fibrations on such a surface V up to automorphisms. The latter fibrations are in one to one correspondence with $ \mathbb{C}_{{\text{ + }}} $ -actions on V considered up to a “speed change”. Non-Gizatullin surfaces are known to admit at most one $ \mathbb{A}^{1} $ -fibration V → S up to an isomorphism of the base S. Moreover, an effective $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ -action on them, if it does exist, is unique up to conjugation and inversion t $ \mapsto $ t ^?1 of $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ . Obviously, uniqueness of $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ -actions fails for affine toric surfaces. There is a further interesting family of nontoric Gizatullin surfaces, called the Danilov-Gizatullin surfaces, where there are in general several conjugacy classes of $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ -actions and $ \mathbb{A}^{{\text{1}}} $ -fibrations, see, e.g., [FKZ1]. In the present paper we obtain a criterion as to when $ \mathbb{A}^{{\text{1}}} $ -fibrations of Gizatullin surfaces are conjugate up to an automorphism of V and the base $ S \cong \mathbb{A}^{{\text{1}}} $ . We exhibit as well large subclasses of Gizatullin $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ -surfaces for which a $ \mathbb{C}^{ * } $ -action is essentially unique and for which there are at most two conjugacy classes of $ \mathbb{A}^{{\text{1}}} $ -fibrations over $ \mathbb{A}^{{\text{1}}} $ .     

Constant Angle Property and Canonical Principal Directions for Surfaces in {\mathbb{M}^{2}(c) \times {\mathbb{R}_{1}}}

In this paper, we study surfaces in Lorentzian product spaces ${{\mathbb{M}^{2}(c) \times \mathbb{R}_1}}$ . We classify constant angle spacelike and timelike surfaces in ${{\mathbb{S}^{2} \times \mathbb{R}_1}}$ and ${{\mathbb{H}^{2} \times \mathbb{R}_1}}$ . Moreover, complete classifications of spacelike surfaces in ${{\mathbb{S}^{2} \times \mathbb{R}_1}}$ and ${{\mathbb{H}^{2} \times \mathbb{R}_1}}$ and timelike surfaces in ${{\mathbb{M}^{2}(c) \times \mathbb{R}_1}}$ with a canonical principal direction are obtained. Finally, a new characterization of the catenoid of the 3rd kind is established, as the only minimal timelike surface with a canonical principal direction in Minkowski 3–space.     

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 ${\mathcal{N}.}$      

On p-tuples of the Grassmann manifolds

We provide a matrix invariant for isometry classes of p-tuples of points in the Grassmann manifold ${G_{n}\left(\mathbb{K}^{d}\right) }$ ( ${\mathbb{K=\mathbb{R}}}$ or ${\mathbb{C}}$ ). This invariant fully characterizes the p-tuple. We use it to classify the regular p-tuples of ${G_{2}\left(\mathbb{R}^{d}\right) }$ , ${G_{3}\left( \mathbb{R}^{d}\right) }$ and ${G_{2}\left( \mathbb{C}^{d}\right) }$ .     

A decomposition of the universal embedding space for the near polygon {{\mathbb H}_n}

Let ${{\mathbb H}_n, n \geq 1}$ , be the near 2n-gon defined on the 1-factors of the complete graph on 2n?+?2 vertices, and let e denote the absolutely universal embedding of ${{\mathbb H}_n}$ into PG(W), where W is a ${\frac{1}{n+2} \left(\begin{array}{c}2n+2 \\ n+1\end{array}\right)}$ -dimensional vector space over the field ${{\mathbb F}_2}$ with two elements. For every point z of ${{\mathbb H}_n}$ and every ${i \in {\mathbb N}}$ , let Δ _i (z) denote the set of points of ${{\mathbb H}_n}$ at distance i from z. We show that for every pair {x, y} of mutually opposite points of ${{\mathbb H}_n, W}$ can be written as a direct sum ${W_0 \oplus W_1 \oplus \cdots \oplus W_n}$ such that the following four properties hold for every ${i \in \{0,\ldots,n \}}$ : (1) ${\langle e(\Delta_i(x) \cap \Delta_{n-i}(y)) \rangle = {\rm PG}(W_i)}$ ; (2) ${\left\langle e \left( \bigcup_{j \leq i} \Delta_j(x) \right) \right\rangle = {\rm PG}(W_0 \oplus W_1 \oplus \cdots \oplus W_i)}$ ; (3) ${\left\langle e \left( \bigcup_{j \leq i} \Delta_j(y) \right) \right\rangle = {\rm PG}(W_{n-i}\oplus W_{n-i+1} \oplus \cdots \oplus W_n)}$ ; (4) ${\dim(W_i) = |\Delta_i(x) \cap \Delta_{n-i}(y)| = \left(\begin{array}{c}n \\ i\end{array}\right)^2 - \left(\begin{array}{c}n \\ i-1\end{array}\right) \cdot \left(\begin{array}{c}n \\ i+1\end{array}\right)}$ .     

Complete bounded null curves immersed in {\mathbb {C}^3} and {\rm {SL}(2,\mathbb {C})}

We construct a simply connected complete bounded mean curvature one surface in the hyperbolic 3-space ${\mathcal {H}^3}$ . Such a surface in ${\mathcal {H}^3}$ can be lifted as a complete bounded null curve in ${\rm {SL}(2,\mathbb {C})}$ . Using a transformation between null curves in ${\mathbb {C}^3}$ and null curves in ${\rm {SL}(2,\mathbb {C})}$ , we are able to produce the first examples of complete bounded null curves in ${\mathbb {C}^3}$ . As an application, we can show the existence of a complete bounded minimal surface in ${\mathbb {R}^3}$ whose conjugate minimal surface is also bounded. Moreover, we can show the existence of a complete bounded immersed complex submanifold in ${\mathbb {C}^2}$ .     

Hurwitz-type bound, knot surgery, and smooth {\mathbb{S }}^1-four-manifolds

In this paper we prove several related results concerning smooth $\mathbb{Z }_p$ or $\mathbb{S }^1$ actions on $4$ -manifolds. We show that there exists an infinite sequence of smooth $4$ -manifolds $X_n$ , $n\ge 2$ , which have the same integral homology and intersection form and the same Seiberg-Witten invariant, such that each $X_n$ supports no smooth $\mathbb{S }^1$ -actions but admits a smooth $\mathbb{Z }_n$ -action. In order to construct such manifolds, we devise a method for annihilating smooth $\mathbb{S }^1$ -actions on $4$ -manifolds using Fintushel-Stern knot surgery, and apply it to the Kodaira-Thurston manifold in an equivariant setting. Finally, the method for annihilating smooth $\mathbb{S }^1$ -actions relies on a new obstruction we derived in this paper for existence of smooth $\mathbb{S }^1$ -actions on a $4$ -manifold: the fundamental group of a smooth $\mathbb{S }^1$ -four-manifold with nonzero Seiberg-Witten invariant must have infinite center. We also include a discussion on various analogous or related results in the literature, including locally linear actions or smooth actions in dimensions other than four.     

Postulation of Disjoint Unions of Lines and Double Lines in {\mathbb{P}^3}

A double line ${C \subset \mathbb{P}^3}$ is a connected divisor of type (2, 0) on a smooth quadric surface. Fix ${(a, c) \in \mathbb{N}^2\ \backslash\ \{(0, 0)\}}$ . Let ${X \subset \mathbb{P}^3}$ be a general disjoint union of a lines and c double lines. Then X has maximal rank, i.e. for each ${t \in \mathbb{Z}}$ either ${h^1(\mathcal{I}_X(t)) = 0}$ or ${h^0(\mathcal{I}_X(t)) = 0}$ .     

Harmonic mappings and conformal minimal immersions of Riemann surfaces into {\mathbb {R}^{\rm N}}

We prove that for any open Riemann surface ${\mathcal{N}}$ , natural number N ≥ 3, non-constant harmonic map ${h:\mathcal{N} \to \mathbb{R}}$ ^N?2 and holomorphic 2-form ${\mathfrak{H}}$ on ${\mathcal{N}}$ , there exists a weakly complete harmonic map ${X=(X_j)_{j=1,\ldots,{\sc N}}:\mathcal{N} \to \mathbb{R}^{\sc N}}$ with Hopf differential ${\mathfrak{H}}$ and ${(X_j)_{j=3,\ldots,{\sc N}}=h.}$ In particular, there exists a complete conformal minimal immersion ${Y=(Y_j)_{j=1,\ldots,{\sc N}}:\mathcal{N} \to \mathbb{R}^{\sc N}}$ such that ${(Y_j)_{j=3,\ldots,{\sc N}}=h}$ . As some consequences of these results (1) there exist complete full non-decomposable minimal surfaces with arbitrary conformal structure and whose generalized Gauss map is non-degenerate and fails to intersect N hyperplanes of ${\mathbb{CP}^{{\sc N}-1}}$ in general position. (2) There exist complete non-proper embedded minimal surfaces in ${\mathbb{R}^{\sc N},}$ ${\forall\,{\sc N} >3 .}$      

The modal logic of {\beta(\mathbb{N})}

Let ${\beta(\mathbb{N})}$ denote the Stone–?ech compactification of the set ${\mathbb{N}}$ of natural numbers (with the discrete topology), and let ${\mathbb{N}^\ast}$ denote the remainder ${\beta(\mathbb{N})-\mathbb{N}}$ . We show that, interpreting modal diamond as the closure in a topological space, the modal logic of ${\mathbb{N}^\ast}$ is S4 and that the modal logic of ${\beta(\mathbb{N})}$ is S4.1.2.     

Minimal generating and normally generating sets for the braid and mapping class groups of \mathbb{D }^{2}, \mathbb S ^{2} and \mathbb{R P^2}

We consider the (pure) braid groups $B_{n}(M)$ and $P_{n}(M)$ , where $M$ is the $2$ -sphere $\mathbb S ^{2}$ or the real projective plane $\mathbb R P^2$ . We determine the minimal cardinality of (normal) generating sets $X$ of these groups, first when there is no restriction on $X$ , and secondly when $X$ consists of elements of finite order. This improves on results of Berrick and Matthey in the case of $\mathbb S ^{2}$ , and extends them in the case of $\mathbb R P^2$ . We begin by recalling the situation for the Artin braid groups ( $M=\mathbb{D }^{2}$ ). As applications of our results, we answer the corresponding questions for the associated mapping class groups, and we show that for $M=\mathbb S ^{2}$ or $\mathbb R P^2$ , the induced action of $B_n(M)$ on $H_3(\widetilde{F_n(M)};\mathbb{Z })$ is trivial, $F_{n}(M)$ being the $n^\mathrm{th}$ configuration space of $M$ .     

Linearity and Second Fundamental Forms for Proper Holomorphic Maps from \mathbb{B}^{n+1} to \mathbb{B}^{4n-3}

For a holomorphic proper map F from the ball $\mathbb{B}^{n+1}$ into $\mathbb{B}^{N+1}$ that is C ³ smooth up to the boundary, the image $M=F(\partial\mathbb{B}^{n})$ is an immersed CR submanifold in the sphere $\partial \mathbb{B}^{N+1}$ on which some second fundamental forms II _M and $\mathit{II}^{CR}_{M}$ can be defined. It is shown that when 4??n+1<N+1??4n?3, F is linear fractional if and only if $\mathit{II}_{M} - \mathit{II}_{M}^{CR} \equiv 0$ .     

Nikodym Maximal Functions Associated with Variable Planes in {\mathbb{R}^{3}}

Given a vector field ${\mathfrak{a}}$ on ${\mathbb{R}^3}$ , we consider a mapping ${x\mapsto \Pi_{\mathfrak{a}}(x)}$ that assigns to each ${x\in\mathbb{R}^3}$ , a plane ${\Pi_{\mathfrak{a}}(x)}$ containing x, whose normal vector is ${\mathfrak{a}(x)}$ . Associated with this mapping, we define a maximal operator ${\mathcal{M}^{\mathfrak{a}}_N}$ on ${L^1_{loc}(\mathbb{R}^3)}$ for each ${N\gg 1}$ by $$\mathcal{M}^{\mathfrak{a}}_Nf(x)=\sup_{x\in\tau} \frac{1}{|\tau|} \int_{\tau}|f(y)|\,dy$$ where the supremum is taken over all 1/N ×? 1/N?× 1 tubes τ whose axis is embedded in the plane ${\Pi_\mathfrak{a}(x)}$ . We study the behavior of ${\mathcal{M}^{\mathfrak{a}}_N}$ according to various vector fields ${\mathfrak{a}}$ . In particular, we classify the operator norms of ${\mathcal{M}^{\mathfrak{a}}_N}$ on ${L^2(\mathbb{R}^3)}$ when ${\mathfrak{a}(x)}$ is the linear function of the form (a ₁₁ x ₁?+?a ₂₁ x ₂, a ₁₂ x ₁?+?a ₂₂ x ₂, 1). The operator norm of ${\mathcal{M}^\mathfrak{a}_N}$ on ${L^2(\mathbb{R}^3)}$ is related with the number given by $$D=(a_{12}+a_{21})^2-4a_{11}a_{22}.$$      

Hausdorff measures of subgroups of \mathbb{R }/\mathbb{Z } and \mathbb{R }

For a sequence $\underline{u}=(u_n)_{n\in \mathbb{N }}$ of integers, let $t_{\underline{u}}(\mathbb{T })$ be the group of all topologically $\underline{u}$ -torsion elements of the circle group $\mathbb{T }:=\mathbb{R }/\mathbb{Z }$ . We show that for any $s\in ]0,1[$ and $m\in \{0,+\infty \}$ there exists $\underline{u}$ such that $t_{\underline{u}}(\mathbb{T })$ has Hausdorff dimension $s$ and $s$ -dimensional Hausdorff measure equal to $m$ (no other values for $m$ are possible). More generally, for dimension functions $f,g$ with $f(t)\prec g(t), f(t)\prec \!\!\!\prec t$ and $g(t)\prec \!\!\!\prec t$ we find $\underline{u}$ such that $t_{\underline{u}}(\mathbb{T })$ has at the same time infinite $f$ -measure and null $g$ -measure.     

The {\bar{\partial}} -Neumann problem on product domains in {\mathbb{C}^{n}}

Let ${\Omega=\Omega_{1}\times\cdots\times\Omega_{n}\subset\mathbb{C}^{n}}$ , where ${\Omega_{j}\subset\mathbb{C}}$ is a bounded domain with smooth boundary. We study the solution operator to the ${\overline\partial}$ -Neumann problem for (0,1)-forms on Ω. In particular, we construct singular functions which describe the singular behavior of the solution. As a corollary our results carry over to the ${\overline\partial}$ -Neumann problem for (0,q)-forms. Despite the singularities, we show that the canonical solution to the ${\overline\partial}$ -equation, obtained from the Neumann operator, does not exhibit singularities when given smooth data.     

Geodesics on the Moduli Space of Oriented Circles in \mathbb{S}^{3}

Let ${\mathbb{Q}^3}$ be the moduli space of oriented circles in the three dimensional unit sphere ${\mathbb{S}^3}$ . Given a natural complex structure such space becomes a three dimensional complex manifold, with a M?bius invariant Hermitian metric h of type (2, 1). Up to M?bius transformations, all geodesics with respect to the Lorentz metric g = Re(h) on ${\mathbb{Q}^3}$ are determined to form a one-parameter family of circles on a helicoid in a space form ${\mathbb{R}^3, \mathbb{H}^3}$ or ${\mathbb{S}^{3}}$ , resp. We show also that any two oriented circles in ${\mathbb{S}^3}$ are connected by countably infinitely many geodesics in ${\mathbb{Q}^3}$ .     

Sufficient conditions for Willmore immersions in \mathbb{R }^3 to be minimal surfaces

We provide two sharp sufficient conditions for immersed Willmore surfaces in $\mathbb{R }^3$ to be already minimal surfaces, i.e. to have vanishing mean curvature on their entire domains. These results turn out to be particularly suitable for applications to Willmore graphs. We can therefore show that Willmore graphs on bounded $C^4$ -domains $\overline{\varOmega }$ with vanishing mean curvature on the boundary $\partial \varOmega $ must already be minimal graphs, which in particular yields some Bernstein-type result for Willmore graphs on $\mathbb{R }^2$ . Our methods also prove the non-existence of Willmore graphs on bounded $C^4$ -domains $\overline{\varOmega }$ with mean curvature $H$ satisfying $H \ge c_0>0 \,{\text{ on }}\, \partial \varOmega $ if $\varOmega $ contains some closed disc of radius $\frac{1}{c_0} \in (0,\infty )$ , and they yield that any closed Willmore surface in $\mathbb{R }^3$ which can be represented as a smooth graph over $\mathbb{S }^2$ has to be a round sphere. Finally, we demonstrate that our results are sharp by means of an examination of some certain part of the Clifford torus in $\mathbb{R }^3$ .     

On the Linear Dependence of a Finite Set of Additive Functions

In this note we prove the following: Let n?≥ 2 be a fixed integer. A system of additive functions ${A_{1},A_{2},\ldots,A_{n}:\mathbb{R} \to\mathbb{R}}$ is linearly dependent (as elements of the ${\mathbb{R}}$ vector space ${\mathbb{R}^{\mathbb{R}}}$ ), if and only if, there exists an indefinite quadratic form ${Q:\mathbb{R}^{n}\to\mathbb{R} }$ such that ${Q(A_{1}(x),A_{2}(x),\ldots,A_{n}(x))\geq 0}$ or ${Q(A_{1}(x),A_{2}(x),\ldots,A_{n}(x))\leq 0}$ holds for all ${x\in\mathbb{R}}$ .     

A zoo of diffeomorphism groups on \mathbb{R }^{n}

We consider the groups ${\mathrm{Diff }}_\mathcal{B }(\mathbb{R }^n)$ , ${\mathrm{Diff }}_{H^\infty }(\mathbb{R }^n)$ , and ${\mathrm{Diff }}_{\mathcal{S }}(\mathbb{R }^n)$ of smooth diffeomorphisms on $\mathbb{R }^n$ which differ from the identity by a function which is in either $\mathcal{B }$ (bounded in all derivatives), $H^\infty = \bigcap _{k\ge 0}H^k$ , or $\mathcal{S }$ (rapidly decreasing). We show that all these groups are smooth regular Lie groups.