Invariant surfaces of the Heisenberg groups (Q1570431)

The Heisenberg group \(H_3\), endowed with a left invariant metric, is a nilpotent Lie group admitting large classes both of minimal and of constant mean curvature surfaces. Minimal surfaces of \(H_3\) were first studied by \textit{M. Bekkar} [Rend. Semin. Fac. Sci. Univ. Cagliari 61, No. 2, 123-130 (1991; Zbl 0792.53056)] and constant mean curvature surfaces by \textit{A. Sanini} [Boll. Unione Mat. Ital., VII. Ser., B 11, No. 2, Suppl., 79-93 (1997; Zbl 0886.53018)]. In the present paper the authors give a complete classification of the constant mean curvature (in particular, minimal) surfaces of \(H_3\) which are invariant with respect to 1-dimensional closed subgroups of the isometry group of the ambient space. They find new examples and they organize in a common framework results that have appeared in various forms in the literature, by the systematic use of Riemannian transformation groups. Applying Hopf's maximum principle, they show that there are no complete graphs of constant mean curvature. Moreover, some of these results are extended to the higher-dimensional Heisenberg groups \(H_{2n+1}\).