Dressing preserving the fundamental group

In this note we consider the relationship between the dressing action and the holonomy representation in the context of constant mean curvature surfaces. We characterize dressing elements that preserve the topology of a surface and discuss dressing by simple factors as a means of adding bubbles to a class of non finite type cylinders.Comment: 36 pages, 1 figur

Generalized DPW method and an application to isometric immersions of space forms

Let $G$ be a complex Lie group and $\Lambda G$ denote the group of maps from the unit circle ${\mathbb S}^1$ into $G$, of a suitable class. A differentiable map $F$ from a manifold $M$ into $\Lambda G$, is said to be of \emph{connection order $(_a^b)$} if the Fourier expansion in the loop parameter $\lambda$ of the ${\mathbb S}^1$-family of Maurer-Cartan forms for $F$, namely F_\lambda^{-1} \dd F_\lambda, is of the form $\sum_{i=a}^b \alpha_i \lambda^i$. Most integrable systems in geometry are associated to such a map. Roughly speaking, the DPW method used a Birkhoff type splitting to reduce a harmonic map into a symmetric space, which can be represented by a certain order $(_{-1}^1)$ map, into a pair of simpler maps of order $(_{-1}^{-1})$ and $(_1^1)$ respectively. Conversely, one could construct such a harmonic map from any pair of $(_{-1}^{-1})$ and $(_1^1)$ maps. This allowed a Weierstrass type description of harmonic maps into symmetric spaces. We extend this method to show that, for a large class of loop groups, a connection order $(_a^b)$ map, for $a<0<b$, splits uniquely into a pair of $(_a^{-1})$ and $(_1^b)$ maps. As an application, we show that constant non-zero curvature submanifolds with flat normal bundle of a sphere or hyperbolic space split into pairs of flat submanifolds, reducing the problem (at least locally) to the flat case. To extend the DPW method sufficiently to handle this problem requires a more general Iwasawa type splitting of the loop group, which we prove always holds at least locally.Comment: Some typographical correction

Isothermic submanifolds of symmetric RR-spaces

We extend the classical theory of isothermic surfaces in conformal 3-space, due to Bour, Christoffel, Darboux, Bianchi and others, to the more general context of submanifolds of symmetric $R$-spaces with essentially no loss of integrable structure.Comment: 35 pages, 3 figures. v2: typos and other infelicities corrected

Discrete Ω\Omega-nets and Guichard nets

We provide a convincing discretisation of Demoulin's $\Omega$-surfaces along with their specialisations to Guichard and isothermic surfaces with no loss of integrable structure.Comment: 39 A4 page

New constructions of twistor lifts for harmonic maps

We show that given a harmonic map $\varphi$ from a Riemann surface to a classical compact simply connected inner symmetric space, there is a $J_2$-holomorphic twistor lift of $\varphi$ (or its negative) if and only if it is nilconformal. In the case of harmonic maps of finite uniton number, we give algebraic formulae in terms of holomorphic data which describes their extended solutions. In particular, this gives explicit formulae for the twistor lifts of all harmonic maps of finite uniton number from a surface to the above symmetric spaces.Comment: Some minor changes and a correction of Example 8.

Constructing solutions to the Bj\"orling problem for isothermic surfaces by structure preserving discretization

In this article, we study an analog of the Bj\"orling problem for isothermic surfaces (that are more general than minimal surfaces): given a real analytic curve $\gamma$ in ${\mathbb R}^3$, and two analytic non-vanishing orthogonal vector fields $v$ and $w$ along $\gamma$, find an isothermic surface that is tangent to $\gamma$ and that has $v$ and $w$ as principal directions of curvature. We prove that solutions to that problem can be obtained by constructing a family of discrete isothermic surfaces (in the sense of Bobenko and Pinkall) from data that is sampled along $\gamma$, and passing to the limit of vanishing mesh size. The proof relies on a rephrasing of the Gauss-Codazzi-system as analytic Cauchy problem and an in-depth-analysis of its discretization which is induced from the geometry of discrete isothermic surfaces. The discrete-to-continuous limit is carried out for the Christoffel and the Darboux transformations as well.Comment: 29 pages, some figure

Some fundamental algebraic tools for the semantics of computation: Part 3. indexed categories

AbstractThis paper presents indexed categories which model uniformly defined families of categories, and suggests that they are a useful tool for the working computer scientist. An indexed category gives rise to a single flattened category as a disjoint union of its component categories plus some additional morphisms. Similarly, an indexed functor (which is a uniform family of functors between the components categories) induces a flattened functor between the corresponding flattened categories. Under certain assumptions, flattened categories are (co)complete if all their components are, and flattened functors have left adjoints if all their components do. Several examples are given. Although this paper is Part 3 of the series “Some fundamental algebraic tools for the semantics of computation”, it is entirely independent of Parts 1 and 2

Willmore Surfaces of Constant Moebius Curvature

We study Willmore surfaces of constant Moebius curvature $K$ in $S^4$. It is proved that such a surface in $S^3$ must be part of a minimal surface in $R^3$ or the Clifford torus. Another result in this paper is that an isotropic surface (hence also Willmore) in $S^4$ of constant $K$ could only be part of a complex curve in $C^2\cong R^4$ or the Veronese 2-sphere in $S^4$. It is conjectured that they are the only examples possible. The main ingredients of the proofs are over-determined systems and isoparametric functions.Comment: 16 pages. Mistakes occured in the proof to the main theorem (Thm 3.6) has been correcte