Constant Mean Curvature Surfaces, Harmonic Maps and Integrable Systems

by Frederic Hélein, R. Moser (Noted by)

Overview

This book intends to give an introduction to harmonic maps between a surface and a symmetric manifold and constant mean curvature surfaces as completely integrable systems. The presentation is accessible to undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics but will also be useful to researchers. It is among the first textbooks about integrable systems, their interplay with harmonic maps and the use of loop groups, and it presents the theory, for the first time, from the point of view of a differential geometer. The most important results are exposed with complete proofs (except for the last two chapters, which require a minimal knowledge from the reader). Some proofs have been completely rewritten with the objective, in particular, to clarify the relation between finite mean curvature tori, Wente tori and the loop group approach - an aspect largely neglected in the literature. The book helps the reader to access the ideas of the theory and to acquire a unified perspective of the subject.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783764365769
Publisher:	Birkhäuser Basel
Publication date:	06/27/2001
Series:	Lectures in Mathematics. ETH Zürich
Edition description:	2001
Pages:	122
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 0.01(d)

Table of Contents

1 Introduction: Surfaces with prescribed mean curvature.- 2 From minimal surfaces and CMC surfaces to harmonic maps.- 2.1 Minimal surfaces.- 2.2 Constant mean curvature surfaces.- 3 Variational point of view and Noether’s theorem.- 4 Working with the Hopf differential.- 4.1 Appendix.- 5 The Gauss-Codazzi condition.- 5.1 Appendix.- 6 Elementary twistor theory for harmonic maps.- 6.1 Appendix.- 7 Harmonic maps as an integrable system.- 7.1 Maps into spheres.- 7.2 Generalizations.- 7.3 A new setting: loop groups.- 7.4 Examples.- 8 Construction of finite type solutions.- 8.1 Preliminary: the Iwasawa decomposition (for)..- 8.2 Application to loop Lie algebras.- 8.3 The algorithm.- 8.4 Some further properties of finite type solutions.- 9 Constant mean curvature tori are of finite type.- 9.1 The result.- 9.2 Appendix.- 10 Wente tori.- 10.1 CMC surfaces with planar curvature lines.- 10.2 A system of commuting ordinary equations.- 10.3 Recovering a finite type solution.- 10.4 Spectral curves.- 11 Weierstrass type representations.- 11.1 Loop groups decompositions.- 11.2 Solutions in terms of holomorphic data.- 11.3 Meromorphic potentials.- 11.4 Generalizations.