Branch points of conformal mappings of surfaces (Q1107858)

Let f: \(S\to M\subset {\mathbb{R}}^ N\) be a smooth, conformal mapping of a Riemann surface in a submanifold of \({\mathbb{R}}^ N\) and assume that f satisfies on each coordinate neighbourhood U a partial differential equation of the form \(\partial^ 2f/\partial z\partial \bar z=A(z)\partial f/\partial z,\) where A: \(U\to {\mathbb{C}}^{N\times N}\) is smooth. The authors prove that f is a conformal smoothly branched immersion, i.e. all critical points of f are branch points and the Gauss map of f can be smoothly extended to the whole of S. Examples of mappings satisfying the hypotheses above are the harmonic, conformal maps and the so-called generalized surfaces of prescribed mean curvature H (H is a given differentiable function on S) in 3-dimensional Riemannian manifolds for which \(f^*TM\) is oriented. Furthermore, the authors prove that the total Gauss curvature of a conformal smoothly branched immersion is equal to \(2\pi (\chi (S)+b)\), where \(\chi\) (S) is the Euler number of S and b is the number of branch points of S, counted with multiplicities. As an application, the results of the authors and \textit{I. V. Guadalupe} [ibid. 270, 571-598 (1985; Zbl 0536.53056)] and the authors [Constant mean curvature surfaces in 4-spaceforms, preprint Münster 1986 (to appear in Rend. Semin. Mat. Univ. Padova 79, 185-202 (1988))] are extended to the branched case. A typical result is the following one. A non-umbilical conformal map of constant mean curvature of a compact Riemann surface in a 3-spaceform satisfies -2\(\chi\) (S)\(\geq u+b\), where u is the number of umbilical points in the set of regular points of f, counted with multiplicities.