Minimal surfaces with non-trivial geometry in the three-dimensional Heisenberg group (Q2108753)

There are surfaces with a large class of symmetries, and in every class of such surfaces particularly nice properties are usually present. Surfaces of revolution in Euclidean \(3\)-space make a good example. Based on this fundamental connection between CMC surfaces and harmonic maps, one can construct CMC surfaces via the loop group theoretic Weierstrass representation. There is the fundamental fact that the Gauss map of helicoidal CMC surfaces in three space, especially CMC surfaces of revolution, are symmetric harmonic maps into the unit 2-sphere.The paper here builds on previous work of the authors in which a generalized Weierstrass type of representation for minimal surfaces in the 3-dimensional Heisenberg group is established, which is one of the model spaces of Thurston geometries. In this paper, which is quite long and with a list of 46 references, symmetric minimal surfaces in the Heisenberg group are examined via the generalized Weierstrass type representation established by the authors previously. Several appendices fill in the background material which will enable the reader to follow the present paper. Researchers in this area should be aware of this paper.