Null curves and directed immersions of open Riemann surfaces

Plane and space curves (14H50) Computational aspects of algebraic curves (14Q05) Stein spaces (32E10) Holomorphic, polynomial and rational approximation, and interpolation in several complex variables; Runge pairs (32E30) Holomorphic mappings, (holomorphic) embeddings and related questions in several complex variables (32H02) Stein manifolds (32Q28) Minimal surfaces and optimization (49Q05)

Abstract: In this paper we study holomorphic immersions of open Riemann surfaces into C^n whose derivative lies in a conical algebraic subvariety A of C^n that is smooth away from the origin. Classical examples of such A-immersions include null curves in C^3 which are closely related to minimal surfaces in R^3, and null curves in SL_2(C) that are related to Bryant surfaces. We establish a basic structure theorem for the set of all A-immersions of a bordered Riemann surface, and we prove several approximation and desingularization theorems. Assuming that A is irreducible and is not contained in any hyperplane, we show that every A-immersion can be approximated by A-embeddings; this holds in particular for null curves in C^3. If in addition A-{0} is an Oka manifold, then A-immersions are shown to satisfy the Oka principle, including the Runge and the Mergelyan approximation theorems. Another version of the Oka principle holds when A admits a smooth Oka hyperplane section. This lets us prove in particular that every open Riemann surface is biholomorphic to a properly embedded null curve in C^3.

Review text

The central theme of the paper are \(A\)-immersions \(F=(f_1,\dots,f_n): M\rightarrow\mathbb C^n\) of compact bordered or open Riemann surfaces \(M\), holomorphic in the interior of \(M\) and directed by an irreducible conical subvariety \(A\subset\mathbb C^n\) in the sense that \((f_1(z),\dots,f_n(z))\in A\) for any local coordinate \(z\) on \(M\). In addition, the authors assume that \(A\backslash\{0\}\) is non-singular and that \(A\) is not contained in a hyperplane. Their concept generalizes the theory of null curves in \(\mathbb C^3\) and \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb C)\), i.e., \(A\)-immersions where \(A\) equals the complex quadric \(\{(z_1,z_2,z_3)\in\mathbb C^3\,|\,z_1^2+z_2^2+z_3^2=0\,\}\) or the cone \(\{Q\in \mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb C)\,|\,\det Q=0\}\). These curves are known to be very closely related to minimal surfaces in \(\mathbb R^3\) and to Bryant surfaces in the hyperbolic space \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb C)/\mathrm{SU}(2,\mathbb C)\) respectively. The paper contains a variety of results about various spaces of \(A\)-immersions, the approximation of local \(A\)-immersions by global ones and results about the approximation of \(A\)-immersions by \(A\)-embeddings. In particular the authors prove an Oka principle for \(A\)- immersions, an approximation theorem of Runge-type and Mergelyan's approximation theorem for \(A\)-immersions. Finally they suggest as a future project the generalisation of the results from open Riemann surfaces to Stein manifolds of arbitrary dimension.

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