Rotational symmetry of Weingarten spheres in homogeneous three-manifolds (Q2661305)

This paper concerns the rotational symmetry of elliptic Weingarten surfaces in homogeneous three-manifolds \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\). Here by an elliptic Weingarten surface is meant an immersed smooth surface in a three-dimensional Riemannian manifold with its mean curvature \(H\) and extrinsic curvature \(K_e\) satisfying a smooth elliptic equation \(H=\phi(H^2-K_e)\) for \(\phi\in C^\infty([0,\infty))\) with \(4t(\phi'(t))^2<1\). This includes in particular the constant mean curvature (CMC) surfaces and constant extrinsic curvature surfaces. There are classical results by Hopf, Chern and Hartman-Wintner that any compact elliptic Weingarten sphere (i.e., surface of genus zero) in \(\mathbb{R}^3, \mathbb{S}^3, \mathbb{H}^3\) is a round sphere; and recent work by Abresch and Rosenberg that any CMC sphere immersed in homogeneous three-manifolds \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\) is a rotational sphere. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the following open problem: whether an elliptic Weingarten sphere immersed in \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\) is a rotational sphere? As a main result, the authors provide a sufficient condition for the rotational symmetry of immersed elliptic Weingarten spheres in \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\). This has a few specific consequences: the first one is that any elliptic Weingarten sphere immersed in \(\mathbb{H}^2\times \mathbb{R}\) is a rotational sphere; the second one is that any sphere of constant positive extrinsic curvature in \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\) is a rotational sphere; and the third one is that any elliptic Weingarten sphere in \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\) with mean curvature \(H\) and extrinsic curvature \(K_e\) satisfying the elliptic equation \(H=\phi(H^2-K_e)\) for \(b>\phi>a>0\) is a rotational sphere. Moreover, the authors study the general Weingarten surfaces with mean curvature, extrinsic curvature and angle function \(\nu\) satisfying a smooth elliptic equation \(H=\Phi(H^2-K_e,\nu^2)\) for \(\Phi\in C^\infty([0,\infty)\times [0,1])\). The main general result in Theorem 1.6 provides a simple sufficient condition for the rotational symmetry of a general Weingarten sphere immersed in \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\). The idea of proof is that assuming a general Weingarten surface \(\Sigma\) in \(\mathbb{E}^3(\kappa,\tau)\) is not a rotational sphere, by constructing a line field on \(\Sigma\) with isolated zeros of negative index we can obtain a contradiction to the Poincaré-Hopf theorem.