Orthogonal asymptotic lines on surfaces immersed in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) (Q734584)

The paper deals with properties of \(2\)-dimensional surfaces immersed in \({\mathbb R}^4\). In particular, the properties studied are hypersphericity and orthogonality of asymptotic lines. An immersion is hyperspherical if its image is contained in a hypersphere. The first result states that for any hyperspherical immersion of a smooth oriented surface there exists a unitary normal vector field \(\nu\) and a real number \(\lambda >0\) such that the ellipse of curvature at any point \(p\) is a line segment with the following property: the distance from the projection of the ellipse of curvature onto the \(\nu\)-axis to \(p\) is \(\lambda\), for all \(p\). The second main result try to be a kind of reciprocal but some condition has to be added: Let \(\alpha:{M}^2\to {\mathbb R}^4\) an immersion of a smooth oriented surface with globally defined orthogonal asymptotic lines. Suppose that there exists a unitary normal vector field \(\nu\) and \(r>0\) such that the distance from the projection of the ellipse of curvature onto the \(\nu\)-axis to \(p\) is \(r\), for all \(p\in {M}^2\), and the Gaussian curvature \(K\neq r^2\). Then \(\alpha\) is hyperspherical. Finally, seven equivalent conditions to the orthogonality of the asymptotic lines are listed. Some of them are taken from \textit{L. F. Mello} [EQUADIFF 2003. 951--956 (2005; Zbl 1104.53004)] and \textit{M. d. C. Romero-Fuster} and \textit{F. Sánchez-Bringas} [Differ. Geom. Appl. 16, No.~3, 213--224 (2002; Zbl 1035.53012)].