Rotational hypersurfaces of periodic mean curvature (Q1038515)

The authors study hypersurfaces of revolution (of a \(1\)-dimensional profile curve) in \(\mathbb R^n\): they prove (Theorem 3.4) that, given an analytic function \(H(s)\) on an open interval \(I\), there is a (unique) hypersurface of revolution with \(H(s)\) as its mean curvature (in terms of the arc length of the profile curve) for any initial distance from the axis of revolution and initial direction of the profile curve, at some \(s_0\in I\), with its profile curve defined on all of \(I\). This result is then applied to investigate existence and uniqueness of hypersurfaces of revolution with periodic mean curvature. In particular, familes of rotational hypersurfaces with periodic mean curvature obtained by varying the initial distance from the axis of revolution (i.e., similar to the well known family of Delaunay surfaces) are studied (Sections 6--7). A key argument used in some of the proofs is a correspondence between hypersurfaces of revolution in \(\mathbb R^n\) and in \(\mathbb R^3\) with the mean curvature \(H^\ast\) of the \(2\)-dimensional surface given by \(2H^\ast=(n-1)H-(n-3){x'\over y}\) in terms of the mean curvature \(H\) of the hypersurface in \(\mathbb R^n\), its distance \(y\) from the axis and the change in height \(x'\) (Theorem 5.1).