Conformal CMC-surfaces in Lorentzian space forms (Q2385392)

The three-dimensional Lorentzian space forms \(\mathbb{R}^3_1\), \(\mathbb{S}^3_1\) and \(\mathbb{H}^3_1\) of respective curvature \(0\), \(1\) and \(-1\) have a common conformal compactification \(\mathbb{Q}^3 = \{[x] \in \mathbb{R}P^4 \mid x_1^2 + x_2^2 - x_4^2 - x_5^2 = 0\}\). This is similar to the common conformal compactification \(\mathbb{S}^n\) of the three standard Riemannian space forms that correspond to Euclidean geometry, spherical geometry, and hyperbolic geometry. The authors prove the following results on constant mean curvature surfaces (CMC-surfaces) and Willmore surfaces in \(\mathbb{Q}^3\): 1) If \(x\) is a space-like CMC-surface then \(x\) is conformally equivalent to a CMC-surface in \(\mathbb{R}^3_1\), \(\mathbb{S}^3_1\), or \(\mathbb{H}^3\). 2) If \(x\) is a space-like Willmore surface, free of umbilic points and with conformal metric of constant curvature \(K\) then two cases are possible: a) \(K = -1\) and \(x\) is conformally equivalent to a minimal surface in \(\mathbb{R}^3_1\). b) \(K = 0\) and \(x\) is conformally equivalent to the minimal surface \(\mathbb{H}^1(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}) \times \mathbb{H}^{1}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\) in~\(\mathbb{H}^3_1\). Apart from proofs of these results, the article contains introductory sections on the conformal space \(\mathbb{Q}^3\) and the geometry of its surfaces.