Rotation hypersurfaces in Lorentz-Minkowski space with constant mean curvature (Q993631)

The notion of rotation surface in a 3-dimensional Lorentz-Minkowski (LM) space \(L^{3}\) is extended to the hypersurfaces of an \((n+1)\)-dimensional LM space \(L^{n+1}\). First, an explicit parametrization of the rotation hypersurfaces in \(L^{n+1}\)is obtained for the cases when the rotation axis is time-like, space-like or light-like. In particular, if the rotation axis is light-like, one determines the orthogonal transformations of \(L^{n+1}\) that leave the rotation axis fixed. Then, the principal curvatures of each rotation hypersurface in \(L^{n+1}\) is computed and the differential equation of the hypersurface with constant mean curvature is determined. The profile curves of the corresponding rotation hypersurfaces are obtained by solving this differential equation. In particular, the nonplanar rotation hypersurfaces with zero mean curvature, i.e., the generalized catenoids in \(L^{n+1}\), are determined. It is shown that, in the case when the rotation axis is light-like, the generalized catenoids generalize Enneper's surfaces of the 2-nd and 3-rd kind.