Spacelike Willmore surfaces in 4-dimensional Lorentzian space forms

Spacelike Willmore surfaces in 4-dimensional Lorentzian space forms, a topic in Lorentzian conformal geometry which parallels the theory of Willmore surfaces in S4, are studied in this paper. We define two kinds of transforms for such a surface, which produce the so-called left/right polar surfaces and the adjoint surfaces. These new surfaces are again conformal Willmore surfaces. For them the interesting duality theorem holds. As an application spacelike Willmore 2-spheres are classified. Finally we construct a family of homogeneous spacelike Willmore tori.     

Equivariant constrained Willmore tori in the 3-sphere

In this paper we study equivariant constrained Willmore tori in the 3-sphere. These tori admit a 1-parameter group of Möbius symmetries and are critical points of the Willmore energy under conformal variations. We show that the spectral curve associated to an equivariant torus is given by a double covering of \(\mathbb {C}\) and classify equivariant constrained Willmore tori by the genus \(g\) of their spectral curve. In this case the spectral genus satisfies \(g \le 3\) .     

An energy functional for Lagrangian tori in $$\mathbb {C}P^2$$

A two-dimensional periodic Schrödingier operator is associated with every Lagrangian torus in the complex projective plane \({\mathbb C}P^2\). Using this operator, we introduce an energy functional on the set of Lagrangian tori. It turns out this energy functional coincides with the Willmore functional \(W^{-}\) introduced by Montiel and Urbano. We study the energy functional on a family of Hamiltonian-minimal Lagrangian tori and support the Montiel–Urbano conjecture that the minimum of the functional is achieved by the Clifford torus. We also study deformations of minimal Lagrangian tori and show that if a deformation preserves the conformal type of the torus, then it also preserves the area, i.e., preserves the value of the energy functional. In particular, the deformations generated by Novikov–Veselov equations preserve the area of minimal Lagrangian tori.     

On the stability of the CMC Clifford Tori as constrained Willmore surfaces

The tori ${T_r = r\, \mathbb{S}^1 \times s\mathbb{S}^1 \subset \mathbb{S}^3}$ , where r ² + s ² = 1 are constrained Willmore surfaces, i.e., critical points of the Willmore functional among tori of the same conformal type. We compute which of the T _r are stable critical points.     

Surfaces in Conformal Geometry

Properties of submanifolds are examined which remain invariantunder a conformal change of metric of the ambiant space. In particular,the Willmore energy functional is discussed as is the Willmoreconjecture for tori.     

Explicit conformally constrained Willmore minimizers in arbitrary codimension

In our previous work (Ndiaye and Schätzle, 2014), we proved that the flat constant mean curvature tori $$\begin{aligned} T_r := r S^1 \times \sqrt{1 - r^2} S^1 \subseteq S^3 \quad \hbox {for } 0 < r \le 1/\sqrt{2} \end{aligned}$$ minimize the Willmore energy in their conformal class in codimension one when \(r \approx 1 / \sqrt{2}\) , that is \(T_r\) is close to the Clifford torus \(T_{Cliff} = T_{1/\sqrt{2}}\) . In this article, we extend this to arbitrary codimension. Moreover we prove that the Clifford torus minimizes the Willmore energy in an open neighbourhood of its conformal class, again in arbitrary codimension, but the neighbourhood may depend on the codimension.     

A characterization of the Ejiri torus in <Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis><Superscript>5</Superscript>

We conjecture that a Willmore torus having Willmore functional between 2π ² and 2π ² \(\sqrt 3 \) is either conformally equivalent to the Clifford torus, or conformally equivalent to the Ejiri torus. Ejiri’s torus in S ⁵ is the first example of Willmore surface which is not conformally equivalent to any minimal surface in any real space form. Li and Vrancken classified all Willmore surfaces of tensor product in S ⁿ by reducing them into elastic curves in S ³, and the Ejiri torus appeared as a special example. In this paper, we first prove that among all Willmore tori of tensor product, the Willmore functional of the Ejiri torus in S ⁵ attains the minimum 2π ² \(\sqrt 3 \), which indicates our conjecture holds true for Willmore surfaces of tensor product. Then we show that all Willmore tori of tensor product are unstable when the co-dimension is big enough. We also show that the Ejiri torus is unstable even in S ⁵. Moreover, similar to Li and Vrancken, we classify all constrained Willmore surfaces of tensor product by reducing them with elastic curves in S ³. All constrained Willmore tori obtained this way are also shown to be unstable when the co-dimension is big enough.     

Isothermic constrained Willmore tori in 3-space

Annals of Global Analysis and Geometry - We show that the homogeneous and the 2-lobe Delaunay tori in the 3-sphere provide the only isothermic constrained Willmore tori in 3-space with Willmore...     

On Otsuki tori and their Willmore energy

Otsuki tori in the three-dimensional unit sphere are studied. From calculations of the Willmore energy, the lower and upper bound estimates for the Otsuki tori are established. Invariance of the Otsuki tori under antipodal maps is also considered and, in such cases, better lower bound estimates of their Willmore energies are obtained.     

Conformal geometry of surfaces in Lorentzian space forms

We study the conformal geometry of an oriented space-like surface in three-dimensional Lorentzian space forms. After introducing the conformal compactification of the Lorentzian space forms, we define the conformal Gauss map which is a conformally invariant two parameter family of oriented spheres. We use the area of the conformal Gauss map to define the Willmore functional and derive a Bernstein type theorem for parabolic Willmore surfaces. Finally, we study the stability of maximal surfaces for the Willmore functional.Dedicated to Professor T.J. WillmoreSupported by an FPPI Postdoctoral Grant from DGICYT Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Spain 1994 and by a DGICYT Grant No. PB94-0750-C02-02     

Uniqueness of Lorentzian Hopf tori

We prove that Lorentzian Hopf tori are the only immersed Lorentzian flat tori in a wide family of Lorentzian three-dimensional Killing submersions with periodic timelike orbits.     

Envelopes and osculates of Willmore surfaces

We view conformal surfaces in the 4-sphere as quaternionic holomorphiccurves in quaternionic projective space. By constructing envelopingand osculating curves, we obtain new holomorphic curves in quaternionicprojective space and thus new conformal surfaces. Applying theseconstructions to Willmore surfaces, we show that the osculatingand enveloping curves of Willmore spheres remain Willmore.     

Harmonic tori in De Sitter spaces S^{2n}_1

We show that all superconformal harmonic immersions from genus one surfaces into de Sitter spaces $S^{2n}_{1}$ with globally defined harmonic sequence are of finite-type and hence result merely from solving a pair of ordinary differential equations. As an application, we prove that all Willmore tori in $S^{3}$ without umbilic points can be constructed in this simple way.     

Constrained Willmore surfaces

Constrained Willmore surfaces are conformal immersions of Riemann surfaces that are critical points of the Willmore energy under compactly supported infinitesimal conformal variations. Examples include all constant mean curvature surfaces in space forms. In this paper we investigate more generally the critical points of arbitrary geometric functionals on the space of immersions under the constraint that the admissible variations infinitesimally preserve the conformal structure. Besides constrained Willmore surfaces we discuss in some detail examples of constrained minimal and volume critical surfaces, the critical points of the area and enclosed volume functional under the conformal constraint. C. Bohle, G. P. Peters and U. Pinkall are partially supported by DFG SPP 1154.     

On rigidity of generalized conformal structures

The classical Liouville Theorem on conformal transformations determines local conformal transformations on the Euclidean space of dimension \({\ge }3\) . Its natural adaptation to the general framework of Riemannian structures is the 2-rigidity of conformal transformations, that is such a transformation is fully determined by its 2-jet at any point. We prove here a similar rigidity for generalized conformal structures defined by giving a one parameter family of metrics (instead of scalar multiples of a given one) on each tangent space.     

Estimation of the conformal factor under bounded Willmore energy

We prove for closed, orientable surfaces in $\ \mathbb{R }^3\ $ with Willmore energy less that $\ 8 \pi - \delta \ $ and whose conformal structures are compactly contained in moduli space that after applying appropriate Möbius transformations the conformal factors between the induced metrics and conformal metrics of constant curvature are uniformly bounded by constants depending only on $\ \delta > 0,$ the genus of the surfaces and the compact subset of the moduli space. Secondly, for a given sequence of closed, orientable surfaces as above, we prove that the conformal factor remains bounded without applying Möbius transformations if and only if no topology is lost. Similar estimates hold in higher codimension.     

Willmore Functionals

We prove some integral inequalities for immersed tori in the three sphere. The functionals considered are generalizations of the Willmore functional.

     

On Willmore Legendrian surfaces in $$\mathbb {S}^5$$ and the contact stationary Legendrian Willmore surfaces

In this paper we study Willmore Legendrian surfaces (that is Legendrian surfaces which are critical points of the Willmore functional). We use an equality proved in Luo (arXiv:1211.4227v6) to get a relation between Willmore Legendrian surfaces and contact stationary Legendrian surfaces in \(\mathbb {S}^5\), and then we use this relation to prove a classification result for Willmore Legendrian spheres in \(\mathbb {S}^5\). We also get an integral inequality for Willmore Legendrian surfaces and in particular we prove that if the square length of the second fundamental form of a Willmore Legendrian surface in \(\mathbb {S}^5\) belongs to [0, 2], then it must be 0 and L is totally geodesic or 2 and L is a flat minimal Legendrian tori, which generalizes the result of Yamaguchi et al. (Proc Am Math Soc 54:276–280, 1976). We also study variation of the Willmore functional among Legendrian surfaces in 5-dimensional Sasakian manifolds. Let \(\Sigma \) be a closed surface and \((M,\alpha ,g_\alpha ,J)\) a 5-dimensional Sasakian manifold with a contact form \(\alpha \), an associated metric \(g_\alpha \) and an almost complex structure J. Assume that \(f:\Sigma \mapsto M\) is a Legendrian immersion. Then f is called a contact stationary Legendrian Willmore surface (in short, a csL Willmore surface) if it is a critical point of the Willmore functional under contact deformations. To investigate the existence of csL Willmore surfaces we introduce a higher order flow which preserves the Legendre condition and decreases the Willmore energy. As a first step we prove that this flow is well posed if \((M,\alpha ,g_\alpha ,J)\) is a Sasakian Einstein manifold, in particular \(\mathbb {S}^5\).     

Equivariant Willmore surfaces in conformal homogeneous three spaces

The complete classification of homogeneous three spaces is well known for some time. Of special interest are those with rigidity four which appear as Riemannian submersions with geodesic fibres over surfaces with constant curvature. Consequently their geometries are completely encoded in two values, the constant curvature, c$c$, of the base space and the so called bundle curvature, r$r$. In this paper, we obtain the complete classification of equivariant Willmore surfaces in homogeneous three spaces with rigidity four. All these surfaces appear by lifting elastic curves of the base space. Once more, the qualitative behaviour of these surfaces is encoded in the above mentioned parameters (c,r)$(c,r)$. The case where the fibres are compact is obtained as a special case of a more general result that works, via the principle of symmetric criticality, for bundle-like conformal structures in circle bundles. However, if the fibres are not compact, a different approach is necessary. We compute the differential equation satisfied by the equivariant Willmore surfaces in conformal homogeneous spaces with rigidity of order four and then we reduce directly the symmetry to obtain the Euler Lagrange equation of 4r²$4r^2$-elasticae in surfaces with constant curvature, c$c$. We also work out the solving natural equations and the closed curve problem for elasticae in surfaces with constant curvature. It allows us to give explicit parametrizations of Willmore surfaces and Willmore tori in those conformal homogeneous 3-spaces.