Extremal disks and extremal surfaces of genus three (Q2386862)

A compact Riemann surface of genus \(g\geq 2\) is said to be extremal if it contains an extremal disk, i.e., a disk of the maximal radius in the hyperbolic metric of the surface. A pioneer work on extremal discs and surfaces is due to \textit{C. Bavard} [Ann. Fac. Sci. Toulouse Math. 5, No. 2, 191--202 (1996; Zbl 0873.30026)], where it is proved that these surfaces have a regular \(6(2g-1)\)--gon as a fundamental region. Moreover, every extremal surface has a finite number of extremal disks, each of them being the projection of a disk inscribed in the fundamental region. After that, extremal surfaces have been intensively studied in a series of papers by \textit{E. Girondo} and \textit{G. González-Diez} [``On extremal discs inside compact hyperbolic surfaces'', C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Sér. I, Math. 329, No. 1, 57--60 (1999; Zbl 0931.30026), ``On extremal Riemann surfaces and their uniformizing Fuchsian groups'', Glasg. Math. J. 44, 149--157 (2002; Zbl 0992.30026) and ``Genus two extremal surfaces: extremal discs, isometries and Weierstrass points'', Isr. J. Math. 132, 221--238 (2002; Zbl 1032.30027)]. In the first of these three works the authors show that for \(g\geq 4\) each extremal surface admits a unique extremal disk, and in the third one they prove, among other things, that there are \(9\) extremal conformally non-equivalent Riemann surfaces of genus 2. In the paper under review the author studies the remaining case \(g=3.\) He shows that there are 1726 non-equivalent extremal surfaces of genus \(3\); they can admit at most two extremal disks and there are \(16\) surfaces which admit exactly two. Also the automorphism groups of these surfaces are calculated (they are either trivial, cyclic or dihedral), and the article includes also the list of all genus 3 extremal surfaces which are hyperelliptic.