Dressing transformations of constrained Willmore surfaces

DOI10.4310/CAG.2014.V22.N3.A4MaRDI QIDQ402737zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Francis E. Burstall, Áurea C. Quintino

Publication date 28 August 2014

Published in Communications in Analysis and Geometry (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.2077

zbMATH Keywords

dressing transformationharmonic mapWillmore conjectureWillmore functional

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Differential geometry of immersions (minimal, prescribed curvature, tight, etc.) (53C42) Correspondences and other transformation methods (e.g., Lie-Bäcklund) for PDEs on manifolds (58J72)

Abstract: We use the dressing method to construct transformations of constrained Willmore surfaces in arbitrary codimension. An adaptation of the Terng--Uhlenbeck theory of dressing by simple factors to this context leads us to define B"acklund transforms of these surfaces for which we prove Bianchi permutability. Specialising to codimension 2, we generalise the Darboux transforms of Willmore surfaces via Riccati equations, due to Burstall-Ferus-Leschke-Pedit-Pinkall, to the constrained Willmore case and show that they amount to our B"acklund transforms with real spectral parameter.

Review text

The Willmore functional is a conformally invariant functional, defined on immersed surfaces in the conformal \(n\)-sphere. Its extrema are the Willmore surfaces and these have attracted attention in recent years, mainly due to interest in the celebrated Willmore conjecture. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEOne approach to Willmore surfaces is via a certain Gauss map. Alternatively, it may be viewed as a map into the space of \(2\)-spheres which is a certain Grassmannian of \(4\)-planes. A key result is that a surface is Willmore if and only if its central sphere congruence is a harmonic map and then integrable systems theory becomes available. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEHarmonic maps admit dressing transformations which arise by applying carefully chosen gauge transformations to the family of flat connections. A larger class of surfaces arises when one imposes the weaker requirement that a surface extremizes the Willmore functional only with respect to variations which preserve the conformal structure: these are the constrained Willmore surfaces. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEIn the paper under review, the authors apply the theory of dressing transformations to constrained Willmore surfaces in arbitrary codimension. An adaptation of the Terng-Uhlenbeck theory of dressing by simple factors to this context leads to define Bäcklund transforms of these surfaces for which Bianchi permutability is proved. For codimension \(2\), the authors generalize the Darboux transforms of Willmore surfaces via Riccati equations, due to Burstall-Ferus-Leschke-Pedit-Pinkall, to the constrained Willmore case.

Recommendations

• Spectral deformation and Bäcklund transformation of constrained Willmore surfaces
• Darboux transforms of Willmore surfaces
• Minimal surfaces under constrained Willmore transformation
• Simple factor dressings and Bianchi-Bäcklund transformations
• CHARACTERIZATIONS OF BIANCHI–BÄCKLUND TRANSFORMATIONS OF CONSTANT MEAN CURVATURE SURFACES

Cited in

(12)

• Simple factor dressings and Bianchi-Bäcklund transformations
• Isothermic constrained Willmore tori in 3-space
• Minimal surfaces under constrained Willmore transformation
• Willmore deformations between minimal surfaces in \(\mathbb{H}^{n+2}\) and \(\mathbb{S}^{n+2}\)
• The -Darboux transformation of minimal surfaces
• Simple factor dressing and the López-Ros deformation of minimal surfaces in Euclidean 3-space
• Dressed minimal surfaces in \( \mathrm{AdS}_4\)
• Tzitzéica transformation is a dressing action
• Transformations of generalized harmonic bundles and constrained Willmore surfaces
• Quartic differentials and harmonic maps in conformal surface geometry
• Darboux transforms of Willmore surfaces
• Spectral deformation and Bäcklund transformation of constrained Willmore surfaces

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