Surfaces in conformal geometry (Q1586050): Difference between revisions

This short paper is a very readable overview on some aspects of conformal surface geometry. Particular emphasis is put on (constrained) Willmore surfaces, a topic that the author crucially contributed to (as the name indicates) after corresponding work on their local geometry by Blaschke and Thomsen [cf. \textit{W.~Blaschke}, ``Vorlesungen über Differentialgeometrie und geometrische Grundlagen von Einsteins Relativitätstheorie. III: Differentialgeometrie der Kreise und Kugeln'', Springer, Berlin (1929; JFM 55.0422.01)], as well as many more results in local Möbius geometry, ``lapsed into obscurity'', as the author phrases it. Various techniques and results are touched upon, paying special attention to papers that introduce new techniques. In the second section, the author summarises the main ideas of a quaternionic approach to surfaces in Euclidean \(3\)- or \(4\)-space, referring to work by \textit{J.~Richter} [Conformal maps of a Riemannian surface into the space of quaternions, Doctoral thesis, TU Berlin (1997; Zbl 0896.53005)] and \textit{F.~Pedit} and \textit{U.~Pinkall} [Doc. Math., J. DMV, Extra Vol. ICM Berlin 1998, 389-400 (1998; Zbl 0910.53042)]: spin transforms and a Weierstrass type representation are discussed, and applications to isothermic and (constrained) Willmore surfaces are outlined. In the final section, a brief account of integrable deformations of surfaces via the modified Novikov-Veselov equation is given [\textit{B.~G.~Konopelchenko}, Stud. Appl. Math. 96, 9-51 (1996; Zbl 0869.58027)], and a possible application to the Willmore conjecture [\textit{I.~Taimanov}, Transl., Ser. 2, Am. Math. Soc. 179, 133-151 (1997; Zbl 0896.53006)] is pointed out. In the reviewer's opinion this paper gives a well written outline of some of the recent approaches to conformal geometry and, in particular, Willmore surfaces. In this way, and also for its list of well selected references, it may serve as a good starting point for research in this area.