Timelike minimal surfaces in the three-dimensional Heisenberg group (Q2149960)

The paper under review studies time-like surfaces in the three-dimensional Heisenberg group \(\operatorname{Nil}_{3}\) with left-invariant semi-Riemannian metric, \(ds^{2}_{-}\), which is defined as follows: \[ ds^{2}_{-}=-dx^{2}_{1}+dx^{2}_{2}+\left(dx_{3}+\frac{1}{2}\left(x_{2}dx_{1}-x_{1}dx_{2}\right)\right)^{2}. \] The authors then use the para-complex structure for time-like surfaces to define the Abresch-Rosenberg differential and the non-linear Dirac equation with generating spinors. Then, they introduce the first result of this paper which characterizes time-like minimal surfaces in terms of the normal Gauss map, showing that non-vertical time-like minimal surfaces are characterized by the non-conformal Lorentz harmonic maps into the de Sitter two-sphere. The authors also give a construction of time-like minimal surfaces in \(\operatorname{Nil}_{3}\) in terms of the para-holomorphic data, commonly, called the generalized Weierstrass-type representation. This construction is based on the loop group decomposition, mainly, the Birkhoff and Iwasawa decompositions which are in terms of the para-complex structure. At the end of this article several examples of time-like minimal surfaces in \(\operatorname{Nil}_{3}\) in terms of para-holomorphic potentials and the generalized Weierstrass-type representation are given.