Laplace eigenvalues and non-planar minimal spheres into 3-dimensional ellipsoids (Q6916869)

The author presents a sufficient condition for branched minimal immersions of spheres into ellipsoids to be embedded. Specifically, if the coordinate functions of the branched minimal immersion are first or second eigenfunctions with respect to a natural metric on the sphere involved in this problem, called critical metric, then it will be an embedding into a 2-dimensional ellipsoid or an immersion into a 3-dimensional ellipsoid. Additionally, if the critical metric is both rotationally symmetric around an axis and symmetric with respect to the orthogonal plane, then the immersion will be an embedding. A construction of non-planar minimal spheres into 3-dimensional ellipsoids is also produced, where the coordinate functions are first and second eigenfunctions with respect to the critical metric obtained by maximizing linear combinations of first and second (area renormalized) Laplace eigenvalues among metrics on the sphere having the aforementioned symmetry constraints or not.