On semidiscrete constant mean curvature surfaces and their associated families (Q515633)

The present paper is devoted to the study of semidiscrete surfaces in three-dimensional Euclidean space. The two main investigated situations are minimal surfaces and surfaces of constant, non-vanishing mean curvature (cmc surfaces). In order to get results on the associated families of the above classes too the author does not restrict to isothermal parametrizations. This requires a translation of the discrete curvature theory to the semidiscrete situation. Investigating semidiscrete isothermal minimal surfaces (characterized by the property of being Christoffel dual do their Gauss map) the use of the Weierstrass representation gives the pencil of associated surfaces (which are no more isothermal). One main result is the proof, that this pencil consists of minimal surfaces. In the case of semidiscrete isothermal cmc surfaces, a Lax pair representation is introduced, which contains the definition of their associated families. As in the case of minimal semidiscrete surfaces the members of the associated surfaces are no longer isothermal, but they all have the same constant mean curvature.