Entire timelike minimal surfaces in \(E^{3,1}\) (Q806049)

This paper describes all entire timelike minimal surfaces in Minkowski 3- space via a kind of Weierstrass representation. Such surfaces need not be planar; examples are given which have strictly positive or strictly negative Gaussian curvature. Included is a treasure-trove of geometric techniques for understanding timelike minimal surfaces. In particular, given a fixed timelike minimal immersion of a surface, a family of associate immersions is constructed. Every member of the family has the same first fundamental form, unit normals, Gaussian curvature and zero mean curvature. As in the positive definite case the immersions in a single family need not be congruent. One also has a method of constructing timelike minimal immersions of a surface S from an immersion of S which is harmonic with respect to an indefinite prescribed metric g on S. The paper ends with examples, including a method of producing entire doubly periodic timelike minimal immersions. Note: The reviewer obtained some of these results using different techniques in ``The Bernstein problem for timelike surfaces'' in Yokahama Math. J. 37, No.2, 125-137 (1990; Zbl 0716.53056).