Critical weak immersed surfaces within sub-manifolds of the Teichmüller space (Q2517222)

For a closed abstract surface \(\Sigma\) let \(W^{k,p}(\Sigma,\mathbb R^m)\) be the Sobolev space of maps from \(\Sigma\) into \(\mathbb R^m\), for \(k\in\mathbb N\) and \(p\in[1,\infty]\). A map \(\vec\Phi\) from \(\Sigma\) into \(\mathbb R^m\) is called a weak immersion if \(\vec\Phi\in W^{1,\infty}\cap W^{2,2}(\Sigma,\mathbb R^m)\) and the pull-back by \(\vec\Phi\) of the canonical metric of \(\mathbb R^m\) is equivalent to any reference metric on \(\Sigma\). If \(\mathcal{E}_\Sigma\) is the space of weak immersions and \(\mathcal{T}_\Sigma\) is the Teichmüller space, then the mapping assigning to every \(\vec\Phi\) the corresponding Teichmüller class is denoted by \(\tau:\mathcal{E}_\Sigma\to\mathcal{T}_\Sigma\). For a submanifold \(N\) of \(\mathcal{T}_\Sigma\), the subspace of weak immersions \(\vec\Phi\) in \(\mathcal{E}_\Sigma\) such that \(\tau(\vec\Phi)\in N\) is denoted by \(\mathcal{E}^N_\Sigma\). The following functionals are defined on \(\tau(\vec\Phi)\in N\): (i)\,the area \(\mathcal{A}(\vec\Phi)=\int\limits_\Sigma d\,vol_{g_{\vec\Phi}}\), (ii)\,the Willmore energy \(\mathcal{W}(\vec\Phi)=\int\limits_\Sigma|\vec H_{\vec\Phi}|^2d\,vol_{g_{\vec\Phi}}\), where \(\vec H_{\vec\Phi}\) is the mean curvature vector of the weak immersion \(\vec\Phi\), and (iii)\, the frame energy for tori \(\mathcal{F}(\vec\Phi,\vec e)=\int\limits_\Sigma|d\vec e|^2_{g_{\vec\Phi}} d\,vol_{g_{\vec\Phi}}\), where \(\Sigma\) is the torus \(T^2\) and \(\vec e=(\vec e_1,\vec e_2)\) is a frame of orthonormal vectors on the tangent bundle \(\vec\Phi_*(TT^2)\). In [Commun. Anal. Geom. 1, No. 2, 281--326 (1993; Zbl 0848.58012)], \textit{L. Simon} initiated the study of the existence problem of a surface of genus \(g\) minimizing the Willmore energy functional \(\mathcal{W}\). It was proved that the minimizing surface exists in the case \(g=1\). For \(g\) greater than 1 it was shown that there is an embedded real analytic surface \(\Sigma_g\) of genus \(g\) in \(\mathbb R^n\) minimizing \(\mathcal{W}\). In this paper, the author studies the critical points of the area energy, the Willmore energy, and the frame energy for tori for weak immersions within smooth submanifolds of the Teichmüller space. The author proves that if \(\Sigma\) is a closed two-dimensional manifold, \(N\) is a submanifold of the Teichmüller space \(\mathcal{T}_\Sigma\), \(\tau_0\in\mathcal{T}_\Sigma\) such that either \(g\leq 2\) or \(\tau_0\) is not hyper-elliptic, and \(\vec\Phi\) is a weak immersion in \(\mathcal{E}_\Sigma\) from \(\Sigma\) into \(\mathbb R^m\) such that \(\tau(\vec\Phi)=\tau_0\), then a critical point \(\vec\Phi\) of the area, respectively the Willmore energy, respectively the frame energy for all \(C^1\) perturbations included in \(N\) satisfies the corresponding constrained Euler-Lagrange equation. As a conclusion, the author deduces that critical points of the Willmore energy or the frame energy for tori are smooth analytic surfaces, away possibly from isolated branched points, under the condition that either the genus is at most 2 or if the sub-manifold does not intersect the subspace of hyper-elliptic points. Also, it is concluded that each closed submanifold of the Teichmüller space has a possibly branched smooth Willmore minimizer satisfying the conformal-constrained Willmore equation.