Embedding and knotting of flat compact surfaces in 3-space (Q5956903)

The main results of the paper are the following: (a) in the Euclidean 3-space, any compact surface with nonempty boundary is isotopic to a flat surface, i.e., to an imbedded surface with zero Gaussian curvature everywhere; (b) two such flat surfaces are isotopic through flat surfaces iff they are isotopic through ordinary surfaces which have no constraint on their curvature; (c) any simple closed space curve can be deformed until it bounds an orientable compact embedded flat (Seifert) surface. A conjecture about isotopy classes of negatively curved surfaces is also proved . Statements (a) and (b) are similar to results previously obtained by \textit{H.~Gluck} and \textit{L.-H.~Pan} in [Topology 37, No. 4, 851-873 (1998; Zbl 0982.57001)] for surfaces with positive curvature.