Generalizations of the Choe-Hoppe helicoid and Clifford cones in Euclidean space (Q522500)

A minimal helicoid in \(\mathbb{R}^3\), endowed with an orthonormal frame \(Oxyz\), is constructed by the action of a family of screw motions (a rotation around the \(Oz\) axis followed by a translation in the \(Oz\) direction) on the line \(Ox\). In [Tohoku Math. J. (2) 65, No. 1, 43--55 (2013; Zbl 1272.53004)], \textit{J. Choe} and \textit{J. Hoppe} generalized this by taking an infinite cone \(M^{2N-1}\) in \(\mathbb{R}^{2N}\) made by all the rays from \(O\) to the Clifford torus \(\mathbb{S}^{N-1}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\times \mathbb{S}^{N-1}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\subset \mathbb{S}^{2N-1}\subset \mathbb{R}^{2N}\). They derived a minimal hypersurface in \(\mathbb{R}^{2N+1}\) by the action on \(M^{2N-1}\) of \textit{multi-screw motions}, i.e., rotations of equal speed on the \(x_kx_{k+N+1}\)-planes followed by a translation in the \(x_{2N+1}\) direction. In the present paper, the authors generalize the helicoid further. First, given a subset \(\Sigma\subset\mathbb{S}^N\) and a positive integer \(L\), they define the \textit{multi-ray cone} in \(\mathbb{R}^{L(N+1)}\) by \(\{(r_1P,\dots,r_LP)\slash (r_1,\dots,r_L)\in\mathbb{R}^L, P\in \Sigma\}\) and a similar cone in \(\mathbb{S}^{L(N+1)-1}\). They prove that the minimality of \(\Sigma\) and of any of its multi-ray cones are equivalent. If \(\Sigma\) is the Clifford torus \(\mathbb{S}^{N}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\times \mathbb{S}^{N}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\) they define this way an \(L\)-ray Clifford cone in \(\mathbb{R}^{L(N+2)}\) and the action of multi-screw motions on this cone yields a minimal submanifold in \(\mathbb{R}^{L(N+2)+2}\). Given positive integers \(L\) and \(N\), the authors construct multi-screw motions on \(\mathbb{R}^{LN+1}\) by rotations of speed \(\lambda_i\Theta\) on each \(\mathbb{R}^{N}\) followed by a translation \(\lambda_0\Theta\) in the \(x_{LN+1}\)-direction (where \(\Theta\) is a parameter in \(\mathbb{R}\)). They apply these to a product of cones on \(L\) independent \(2N\)-dimensional Clifford tori in \(\mathbb{S}^{2N+1}\) and derive minimal submanifolds in \(\mathbb{R}^{L(2N+2)+1}\). These techniques yield several new classes of examples of minimal submanifolds/subvarieties, both in Euclidean spaces and in Euclidean spheres. The authors also recover older examples, to quote the abstract, ``Choe-Hoppe's helicoid of codimension one, the cone over Lawson's ruled minimal surfaces in \(\mathbb{S}^3\), Barbosa-Dajczer-Jorge's ruled submanifolds, and Harvey-Lawson's volume-minimizing twisted normal cone over the Clifford torus \(\mathbb{S}^{N-1}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\times \mathbb{S}^{N-1}(\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}})\)''.