Differential Invariants of Conformal and Projective Surfaces

Abstract

We show that, for both the conformal and projective groups, all the differential invariants of a generic surface in three-dimensional space can be written as combinations of the invariant derivatives of a single differential invariant. The proof is based on the equivariant method of moving frames.Comment: This is a contribution to the Proceedings of the 2007 Midwest Geometry Conference in honor of Thomas P. Branson, published in SIGMA (Symmetry, Integrability and Geometry: Methods and Applications) at http://www.emis.de/journals/SIGMA