Surfaces in Lorentzian hyperbolic space (Q1182221)

In this well-written paper the author studies the Gauss map of a spacelike surface immersed in the 3-dimensional Lorentzian space form of negative constant sectional curvature, \(H^ 3_ 1\). The Gauss map takes its image in an appropriate Grassmannian which, with its naturally induced pseudo-Riemannian structure, is written as a product of \(D\times D\), where \(D\) is the 2-dimensional hyperbolic space of constant curvature \(-2\). This is analogous to the situation for a surface in Euclidean 4- space, where the Grassmannian splits as a product of spheres. The author proves several results using this Gauss map and its projections onto the two factors. For example, if the mean curvature of the immersion is constant then the Gauss map and its projections are harmonic. There are also results assuming that the projections omit large subsets of \(D\). In the final section the author constructs a Bäcklund transformation for surfaces in \(H^ 3_ 1\) with constant mean curvature.