Ribaucour transformations for hypersurfaces in space forms (Q2502301)

In the excellently written paper the authors establish the theory of Ribaucour transformations for hypersurfaces \(M^n\) in a space form \(\overline M^{n+1}(k)\), \(k=0,1,-1\). In recent years the theory and construction of cmc surfaces (i.e., surfaces with constant mean curvature) was studied in a different way. This paper is organized in 3 steps: Section 1 contains the definition of Ribaucour transformations for hypersurfaces of a space form. This definition has a local character. The first tool in the study of Ribaucour transformations is its characerization in terms of differential equations. These equations reduce to linear system. The authors show for hypersurfaces \(M\) of \(S^{n+1}\) or of \(H_{n+1}\) which admit principal orthonormal vector fields the existence of totally umbilic hypersurfaces, locally associated to \(M\) by a Ribaucour transformation. Some results valid in Euclidean space are generalized here. In Section 2 the authors study Ribaucour transformations for linear Weingarten surfaces in \(S^3\) and \(H^3\) and extend some results given in \(\mathbb R^3\) by A. Corro, W. Ferreirea and K. Tenenblat. Furthermore they give a sufficient condition so that a Ribaucour transformation transforms a linear Weingarten surface to another surface of the same type. This condition provides an integrable system of differential equations whose solutions give the possibility to obtain linear Weingarten surfaces in \(\overline M^3\) from a given such surface. In Section 3 the authors construct a one-parameter family of surfaces with constant mean curvature in \(S^3\), locally associated to the flat torus by a Ribaucour transformation and it is proved that the surfaces of this family are complete. This family contains complete cmc cylinders immersed in \(S^3\). As a particular case, the authors get a family of complete minimal surfaces and cylinders locally associated to the Clifford torus by a Ribaucour transformation.