Rotations of the three-sphere and symmetry of the Clifford torus

arXivmath/9810023MaRDI QIDQ6501049FDOQ6501049

Authors: John McCuan, Lafe Spietz 

Abstract: We describe decomposition formulas for rotations of $R^3$ and $R^4$ that have special properties with respect to stereographic projection. We use the lower dimensional decomposition to analyze stereographic projections of great circles in $S^{2}subset{R}^3$. This analysis provides a pattern for our analysis of stereographic projections of the Clifford torus $mathcalCsubset{S}^{3}subset{R}^4$. We use the higher dimensional decomposition to prove a symmetry assertion for stereographic projections of $mathcalC$ which we believe we are the first to observe and which can be used to characterize the Clifford torus among embedded minimal tori in $S^3$---though this last assertion goes beyond the scope of this paper. An effort is made to intuitively motivate all necessary concepts including rotation, stereographic projection, and symmetry.

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