Euclidean complete affine surfaces with constant affine mean curvature (Q1810773)

In terms of a local graph representation, curvature functions in the unimodular affine differential geometry can be represented by fourth order PDEs. For locally strongly convex hypersurfaces, the global classification of affine hyperspheres has been finished about a decade ago, while the global classification of affine extremal surfaces (affine Bernstein problems in the versions of Chern and Calabi, resp.) was given in 2000-2001. Thus a next step is the global classification of affine (hyper-)surfaces with constant affine mean curvature \(H\); this condition again leads to a highly nonlinear fourth order PDE for the local graph function. The authors consider two completeness conditions: Euclidean completeness (global graph representation) and affine completeness (completeness of the Blaschke metric). The first important result is that, for locally strongly convex surfaces with constant affine mean curvature, Euclidean completeness implies affine completeness. This result is the basis for a classification of Euclidean complete, locally strongly convex surfaces with constant affine mean curvature as follows: (i) \(H\) positive implies that the surface is an ellipsoid; (ii) \(H=0\) implies that the surface is an elliptic paraboloid; (iii) \(H\) negative implies that the geometry of the surface is ``finite'' (this terminology means that certain tensor norms for the affine Weingarten form \(B\) and the affine cubic form \(A\) and their covariant derivatives are bounded). For the very subtle and delicate proofs the authors adapt blow-up techniques from symplectic geometry.