Examples of constant mean curvature surfaces obtained from harmonic maps to the two sphere (Q1374875): Difference between revisions

In this paper families of surfaces with constant mean curvature in quotients of the Euclidean space are obtained from their Gauss maps. We start by considering a compact Riemann surface \(M\) of positive genus \(g\leq 3\) with three commuting anticonformal involutions \(u_1, u_2, u_3\). Following \textit{L. Lemaire} [J. Differ. Geom. 13, 51-78 (1978; Zbl 0388.58003)], we construct a smooth harmonic map \(\varphi: M\to \mathbb{S}^2\) minimizing the energy functional in the class of equivariant maps with respect to \(\{u_1, u_2, u_3\}\) and with respect to the symmetries around the three coordinate planes in \(\mathbb{R}^3\). From this harmonic map we obtain an unbranched constant mean curvature immersion \(\psi:M \to \mathbb{R}^3/ \Gamma\) whose Gauss map is \(\varphi\). Here \(\Gamma\) is a discrete subgroup of translations of rank \(g\) generated by orthogonal vectors. We also prove that the immersions are embeddings and exhibit a geometrical characterization of the examples.