Tight surfaces and regular homotopy (Q1083703)

Smooth immersions \(f: M^ 2\to E^ 3\) with \(\int_{M}| K| =2\pi (4-\chi (M))\) (tight immersions) are known to exist for all closed surfaces \(M^ 2\) except for the Klein bottle, the projective plane and the surface with \(\chi =-1\) (unknown case). All these examples lie in the standard regular homotopy class of immersions, and in 1960 N. H. Kuiper asked in which other regular homotopy classes such tight immersions might exist. Recently the author [Topology 24, 421-434 (1985; Zbl 0583.57020)] has given a classification of regular homotopy classes of immersed surfaces in \(E^ 3\) using the Arf-invariant \(\sigma_ f\in {\mathbb{Z}}_ 8\). The main result of the present paper says: 1. \(\inf_{f}\int_{M}| K| =2\pi (4-\chi (M))\) in every regular homotopy class, 2. This bound is attained in every regular homotopy class if \(\chi (M)<- 9\) or if M is orientable of genus \(g\geq 4\) (in some of the remaining cases there are special results for certain Arf invariants). The examples of tight immersions in the non-standard regular homotopy classes are constructed as smoothings of certain polyhedra.