Maximal surfaces with singularities in Minkowski space (Q2505142)

The Minkowski 3-space \(L^3\) is the 3-dimensional affine space \(\mathbb{R}^3\) with the inner product \(\langle,\rangle= -(dx^0)^2+ (dx^1)^2+ (dx^2)^2\). An immersion \(f: M^2\to L^3\) of a 2-manifold into \(L^3\) is called space-like if the induced metric \(ds^2= f^*\langle,\rangle= \langle df.df\rangle\) is positive definite on \(M^2\). A space-like immersion is called maximal if its mean curvature vanishes identically. It is well-known that the only complete maximal space-like surface in \(L^3\) is the plane. It is also well-known that every maximal surface can be locally lifted to a null holomorphic immersion into \(\mathbb{C}^3\). Null means that its differential has zero length in the Lorentzian metric \(-(dz^0)^2+ (dz^1)^2+ (dz^2)^2\) of \(\mathbb{C}^3\). However, the projection of a null holomorphic immersion to \(L^3\) might not be regular. The authors call them maxfaces and show that this class of generalized surfaces is a rich object to investigate. In particular for complete maxfaces they prove the following Osserman-type inequality: \(2\deg g\geq -x(M^2)^2\) (number of ends), where \(g: M^2\to \mathbb{C} P^1\) is the Gauss map.