A surface containing a line and a circle through each point is a quadric (Q357854)

The authors prove that a smooth surface in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with the property that each surface point is the transversal intersection of a line segment and a circular arc in the surface is part of a hyperboloid of one sheet, a quadratic cone, an elliptic cylinder, or a plane. The precise statement also requires \(C^\infty\) and continuous dependency of line and circle on the surface point. An example shows that this theorem is not true in complex space. The proof uses simple arguments from algebraic geometry. From algebraicity results for the surface and the curve of generators in the Grassmannian of lines, the authors infer parallelity of all circle planes. There exists a circle \(C\) whose plane intersects the surface with multiplicity one only in \(C\) only. Hence the surface degree equals two. In the concluding section, related statements and examples for multiply circular surfaces are discussed. The authors give a simplified proof for \textit{N. Takeuchi's} theorem that a closed surface of genus one in Euclidean three-space cannot contain seven circles through each point [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 100, 145--147 (1987; Zbl 0617.53053)]. A closed surface homeomorphic to a sphere or a torus that contains four circles through each point is necessarily a cyclide. It is unknown whether the number of circles in this theorem can be reduced to three. By example, this is possible in isotropic geometry.