Optimal rigidity estimates for nearly umbilical surfaces (Q814680)

A point \(p\) on a smooth surface \(\Sigma\subset\mathbb R^3\) is called umbilical if the principal curvatures of \(\Sigma\) at \(p\) are equal. A very known theorem of classical difierential geometry states that if \(\Sigma\) is connected and all points of \(\Sigma\) are umbilical, then either \(\Sigma\) is a subset of a sphere or of a plane. In the excellently written paper the authors give a very deep generalization by their main theorem: Let \(\Sigma\subset \mathbb R^3\) be a smooth compact connected surface without boundary and for convenience normalize the area of \(\Sigma\) by \(\text{ar}(\Sigma)=4\pi\). Then, \[ \| A- \text{Id}\|_{L^2(\Sigma)}\leq C\| \mathring A\|_{L^2(\Sigma)}, \] where \(C\) is a universal constant. If in addition \(\| \mathring A\|_{L^2(\Sigma)}\leq 8\pi\), then there exists a conformal parameterization \(\psi: S^2\to \Sigma\) and a vector \(c_\Sigma\in\mathbb R^3\) such that \[ \|\psi-(c_\Sigma+ \text{id})\|_{W^{22}(S^2)}\leq C\| \mathring A\|_{L^2(\Sigma)}. \] Here \(A\) denotes the traceless part of the second fundamental form of \(\Sigma\), i.e. the tensor \(A-\frac12(\text{tr\,}A)\text{Id}\), if Id denotes the identity \((1,1)\)-tensor. \(\text{id}: S^2\subset \mathbb R^3\to \mathbb R^3\) is the standard isometric embedding of the round sphere. The comprehensive work is completed by some helpful references.