On the Gauss map of surfaces in \(R^ n\) (Q1101964)

For a map \(\Phi\) from a Riemann surface \(S_ 0\) to \({\mathbb{C}}^ n\setminus \{0\}\) satisfying \(\Phi \cdot \Phi =0\), to represent the Gauss map \(\bar{\mathbb{G}}: S_ 0\to Q_{n-2}\subset {\mathbb{C}}P^{n-1}\) of a conformal immersion \(X: S_ 0\to {\mathbb{R}}^ n\), Hoffman-Osserman gave necessary and sufficient conditions A: \(\Phi _{\bar z}-\eta \Phi =e^{i\alpha (z)}R(z)\), and \(\alpha _{z\bar z}=Im\{\eta _ z\}\), where \(z\) is a local parameter on \(S_ 0\), \(R(z)\) is a real vector and \(\eta\) is defined by \(\eta =\Phi _{\bar z}\cdot {\bar \Phi}/| \Phi |^ 2\). In this paper we introduce necessary and sufficient conditions B: \[ Im\{({\bar \Phi}_ z\cdot {\bar \Phi}_ z)^{1/2}(\Phi _{{\bar z}}-\eta \Phi)\}=0, \] and \[ Im(\Phi _{{\bar z}}\cdot \Phi_{z\bar z}/\Phi _{\bar z}\cdot \Phi _{{\bar z}}-\Phi _ z\cdot {\bar \Phi}/| F| ^ 2_{{\bar z}}=0, \] which are equivalent to A but are more explicit. We prove that the conditions B are necessary when the mean curvature vector H of \(X(S_ 0)\subset {\mathbb{R}}^ n \)is never zero. And in the proof we derive the equation: \[ (\log | H|)_ z=\Phi _{\bar z}\cdot \Phi _{z\bar z}/\Phi _{\bar z}\cdot \Phi _{\bar z}-\Phi _ z\cdot {\bar \Phi}/| \Phi |^ 2, \] which generalizes a result of Kenmotsu for surfaces in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3.\) Moreover, conditions B yield somewhat shorter proofs of the results of Hoffman-Osserman for the cases \(n=3,4.\) We prove that conditions B are sufficient when \(V=\Phi _{\bar z}-\eta \Phi\) is never zero. And we give a constructive proof which allows us to explicitly represent \(X(S_ 0)\) by his Gauss map \(\Phi\), and to generalize the representation theorem of Kenmotsu for surfaces in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) to all dimensions.