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 \(\phi (s,t)=\beta _{a,b}(s)+\beta _{a,b}(t)\).