This thesis mainly treats two developments of the classical theory of hypersurfaces inside pseudo-Riemannian space forms.
The former - a joint work with Francesco Bonsante - consists in the study of immersions of smooth manifolds into holomorphic Riemannian space forms of constant curvature -1 (including SL(2,C) with a multiple of its Killing form): this leads to a Gauss-Codazzi theorem, it suggests an approach to holomorphic transitioning of immersions into pseudo-Riemannian space forms, a trick to construct holomorphic maps into the PSL(2,C)-character variety, and leads to a restatement of Bers theorem.
The latter - a joint work with Andrea Seppi - consists in the study of immersions of n-manifolds inside the space of geodesics of the hyperbolic (n+1)-space. We give a characterization, in terms of the para-Sasaki structure of this space of geodesics, of the Riemannian immersions which turn out to be Gauss maps of equivariant immersions into the hyperbolic space.
Kirigami is the art of cutting paper to make it articulated and deployable, allowing for it to be shaped into complex two and three-dimensional geometries. The mechanical response of a kirigami sheet when it is pulled at its ends is enabled and limited by the presence of cuts that serve to guide the possible non-planar deformations. Inspired by the geometry of this art form, we ask two questions: (i) What is the shortest path between points at which forces are applied? (ii) What is the nature of the ultimate shape of the sheet when it is strongly stretched? Mathematically, these questions are …
In this paper, we parametrize the space of isometric immersions of the hyperbolic plane into the hyperbolic 3-space in terms of null-causal curves in the space of oriented geodesics. Moreover, we characterize "ideal cones" (i.e., cones whose vertices are on the ideal boundary) by behavior of their mean curvature.
In this paper we consider on a complete Riemannian manifold $M$ an immersed totally geodesic hypersurface $\Si$ existing together with an immersed submanifold $N$ without focal points. No curvature condition is needed. We obtained several connectedness results relating the topologies of $M$ and $\Si$ which depend on the codimension of $N$.
We study minimal immersions of closed surfaces (of genus $g \ge 2$) in hyperbolic 3-manifolds, with prescribed data $(σ, tα)$, where $σ$ is a conformal structure on a topological surface $S$, and $αdz^2$ is a holomorphic quadratic differential on the surface $(S,σ)$. We show that, for each $t \in (0,τ_0)$ for some $τ_0 > 0$, depending only on $(σ, α)$, there are at least two minimal immersions of closed surface of prescribed second fundamental form $Re(tα)$ in the conformal structure $σ$. Moreover, for $t$ sufficiently large, there exists no such minimal immersion. Asymptotically, as $t \to 0$…
Let $(S,h)$ be a closed hyperbolic surface and $M$ be a quasi-Fuchsian 3-manifold. We consider incompressible maps from $S$ to $M$ that are critical points of an energy functional $F$ which is homogeneous of degree $1$. These "minimizing" maps are solutions of a non-linear elliptic equation, and reminiscent of harmonic maps -- but when the target is Fuchsian, minimizing maps are minimal Lagrangian diffeomorphisms to the totally geodesic surface in $M$. We prove the uniqueness of smooth minimizing maps from $(S,h)$ to $M$ in a given homotopy class. When $(S,h)$ is fixed, smooth minimizing maps …
Starting from two Lagrangian immersions and a Legendre curve $\tildeγ(t)$ in $\mathbb{S}^3(1)$ (or in $\mathbb{H}_1^3(1)$), it is possible to construct a new Lagrangian immersion in $\mathbb{CP}^n$ (or in $\mathbb{CH}^n$), which is called a warped product Lagrangian immersion. When $\tildeγ(t)=(r_1e^{i(\frac{r_2}{r_1}at)}, r_2e^{i(- \frac{r_1}{r_2}at)})$ (or $\tildeγ(t)=(r_1e^{i(\frac{r_2}{r_1}at)}, r_2e^{i(\frac{r_1}{r_2}at)})$), where $r_1$, $r_2$, and $a$ are positive constants with $r_1^2+r_2^2=1$ (or $-r_1^2+r_2^2=-1$), we call the new Lagrangian immersion a Calabi product Lagrangian imme…
We consider critical points of the functionals $Π$ and $Ψ$ defined as the global $L^2$-norm of the second fundamental form and mean curvature vector of isometric immersions of compact Riemannian manifolds into a background Riemannian manifold, respectively, as functionals over the space of deformations of the immersion. We prove gap theorems for these functionals into hyperbolic manifolds, and show that the celebrated gap theorem for minimal immersions into the sphere can be cast as a theorem about critical points of these functionals of constant mean curvature function, and whose second funda…
This article explores closed geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces. We show that, for sufficiently large $k$, the shortest closed geodesics with at least $k$ self-intersections, taken among all hyperbolic surfaces, all lie on an ideal pair of pants and have length $2\arccosh(2k+1)$.
Let W be a compact hyperbolic n-manifold with totally geodesic boundary. We prove that if n>3 then the holonomy representation of pi_1 (W) into the isometry group of hyperbolic n-space is infinitesimally rigid.
We give an identity involving sums of functions of lengths of simple closed geodesics, known as a McShane identity, on any non-orientable hyperbolic surface with boundary which generalises Mirzakhani's identities on orientable hyperbolic surfaces with boundary.
This paper determines which orientable hyperbolic 3-manifolds contain simple closed geodesics. The Fuchsian group corresponding to the thrice-punctured sphere generates the only example of a complete non-elementary orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold that does not contain a simple closed geodesic. We do not assume that the manifold is geometrically finite or that it has finitely generated fundamental group.
It has been shown in by Huang-Lucia-Tarantello [17] that, for given $\vert c \vert <1$, the moduli space of constant mean curvature (CMC) $c$-immersions of a closed orientable surface of genus $\mathfrak{g} \geq 2$ into a hyperbolic $3$-manifold can be parametrized by elements of the tangent bundle of the corresponding Teichmüller space. This is attained by showing the unique solvability of the Gauss-Codazzi equations governing (CMC) c-immersions. The corresponding unique solution is identified as the global minimum (and only critical point) of the Donaldson functional $D_t$ (introduced in [11…
Given a geometrically finite hyperbolic cone-manifold, with the cone singularity sufficiently short, we construct a one parameter family of cone-manifolds decreasing the cone angle to zero. We also control the geometry of this one parameter family via the Schwarzian derivative of the projective boundary and the length of closed geodesics.
We explore the relation among volume, curvature and properness of a $m$-dimensional isometric immersion in a Riemannian manifold. We show that, when the $L^p$-norm of the mean curvature vector is bounded for some $m \leq p\leq \infty$, and the ambient manifold is a Riemannian manifold with bounded geometry, properness is equivalent to the finiteness of the volume of extrinsic balls. We also relate the total absolute curvature of a surface isometrically immersed in a Riemannian manifold with its properness. Finally, we relate the curvature and the topology of a complete and non-compact $2$-Riem…
This article deals with the set of closed geodesics on complete finite type hyperbolic surfaces. For any non-negative integer $k$, we consider the set of closed geodesics that self-intersect at least $k$ times, and investigate those of minimal length. The main result is that, if the surface has at least one cusp, their self-intersection numbers are exactly $k$ for large enough $k$.
The goal of the article is to provide different explicit quantifications of the non density of simple closed geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces. In particular, we show that within any embedded metric disk on a surface, lies a disk of radius only depending on the topology of the surface (and the size of the first embedded disk), which is disjoint from any simple closed geodesic.
We show a generic finiteness result for least area planes in 3-dimensional hyperbolic space. Moreover, we prove that the space of minimal immersions of disk into hyperbolic space is a submanifold of a product bundle over a space of immersions of circle into sphere at infinity. The bundle projection map when restricted to this submanifold is Fredholm of index zero. By using this result, we also show that the space of minimal planes with smooth boundary curve at infinity is a manifold.
We discuss generalizations of the well-known theorem of Hilbert that there is no complete isometric immersion of the hyperbolic plane into Euclidean 3-space. We show that this problem is expressed very naturally as the question of the existence of certain homotheties of reflective submanifolds of a symmetric space. As such, we conclude that the only other (non-compact) cases to which this theorem could generalize are the problem of isometric immersions with flat normal bundle of the hyperbolic space $H^n$ into a Euclidean space $E^{n+k}$, $n \geq 2$, and the problem of Lagrangian isometric imm…
The edge of torn elastic sheets and growing leaves often form a hierarchical buckling pattern. Within non-Euclidean plate theory this complex morphology can be understood as low bending energy isometric immersions of hyperbolic Riemannian metrics. With this motivation we study the isometric immersion problem in strip and disk geometries. By finding explicit piecewise smooth solutions of hyperbolic Monge-Ampere equations on a strip, we show there exist periodic isometric immersions of hyperbolic surfaces in the small slope regime. We extend these solutions to exact isometric immersions through …
We classify all regular three-dimensional convex cones which possess an automorphism group of dimension at least two, and provide analytic expressions for the complete hyperbolic affine spheres which are asymptotic to the boundaries of these cones. The affine spheres are represented by explicit hypersurface immersions into three-dimensional real space. The generic member of the family of immersions is given by elliptic integrals.
We study metrics on shape space of immersions that have a particularly simple horizontal bundle. More specifically, we consider reparametrization invariant Sobolev metrics $G$ on the space $\operatorname{Imm}(M,N)$ of immersions of a compact manifold $M$ in a Riemannian manifold $(N,\overline{g})$. The tangent space $T_f\operatorname{Imm}(M,N)$ at each immersion $f$ has two natural splittings: one into components that are tangential/normal to the surface $f$ (with respect to $\overline{g}$) and another one into vertical/horizontal components (with respect to the projection onto the shape space…
Although the Nash theorem solves the isometric embedding problem, matters are inherently more involved if one is further seeking an embedding that is well-behaved from the standpoint of submanifold geometry. More generally, consider a Lipschitz map $F:M^m\to\mathbb R^n$, where $M^m$ is a Hadamard manifold whose curvature lies between negative constants. The main result of this paper is that $F$ must perform a substantial compression: For every $r>0$ and integer $k\geq 2$ there exist $k$ geodesic balls of radius $r$ in $M^m$ that are arbitrarily far from each other, but whose images under $F$ a…
Suppose n>2, let M,M' be n-dimensional connected complete finite-volume hyperbolic manifolds with non-empty geodesic boundary, and suppose that the fundamental group of M is quasi-isometric to the fundamental group of M' (with respect to the word metric). Also suppose that if n=3, then the boundaries of M and of M' are compact. We show that M is commensurable with M'. Moreover, we show that there exist homotopically equivalent hyperbolic 3-manifolds with non-compact geodesic boundary which are not commensurable with each other. We also prove that if M is as above and G is a finitely generated …
We present several local and global results on isometric immersions of Kaehler manifolds $M^{2n}$ into hyperbolic space $\Hy^{2n+p}$. For instance, a classification is given in the case of dimension $n\geq 4$ and codimension $p=2$. Moreover, as corollaries of general results, we conclude that there are no isometric immersion in codimension $p\leq n-2$ if the Kaehler manifold is of dimension $n\geq 4$ and either has a point of positive holomorphic sectional curvature or is compact.
There exists a well known construction which allows to associate with two hyperbolic affine spheres $f_i: M_i^{n_i} \to \mathbb R^{n_i+1}$ a new hyperbolic affine sphere immersion of $I \times M_1 \times M_2$ into $\mathbb R^{n_1+n_2+3}$. In this paper we deal with the inverse problem: how to determine from properties of the difference tensor whether a given hyperbolic affine sphere immersion of a manifold $M^n \to \mathbb R^{n+1}$ can be decomposed in such a way.
In this paper, we give a definition of coherent tangent bundles of space form type, which is a generalized notion of space forms. Then, we classify their realizations in the sphere as a wave front, which is a generalization of a theorem of O'Neill and Stiel: any isometric immersion of the n-sphere into the (n+1)-sphere of the same sectional curvature is totally geodesic.
In this paper we analyze and classify the totally geodesic subspaces of finite volume quaternionic hyperbolic orbifolds and their generalizations, locally symmetric orbifolds arising from irreducible lattices in Lie groups of the form $(\mathbf{Sp}_{2n}(\mathbb{R}))^q \times \prod_{i=1}^r \mathbf{Sp}(p_i,n-p_i) \times (\mathbf{Sp}_{2n}(\mathbb{C}))^s$. We give criteria for when the totally geodesic subspaces of such an orbifold determine its commensurability class. We give a parametrization of the commensurability classes of finite volume quaternionic hyperbolic orbifolds in terms of arithmeti…
Several characterizations of umbilic points of submanifolds in arbitrary Riemannian and Lorentzian manifolds are given. As a consequence, we obtain new characterizations of spheres in the Euclidean space and of hyperbolic spaces in the Lorentz-Minkowski space. We also prove the Lorentzian version of a classical result by Cartan.
For an oriented isometric immersion $f:M\to S^n$ the spherical Gauss map is the Legendrian immersion of its unit normal bundle $UM^\perp$ into the unit sphere subbundle of $TS^n$, and the geodesic Gauss map $γ$ projects this into the manifold of oriented geodesics in $S^n$ (the Grassmannian of oriented 2-planes in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$), giving a Lagrangian immersion of $UM^\perp$ into a Kaehler-Einstein manifold. We give expressions for the mean curvature vectors for both the spherical and geodesic Gauss maps in terms of the second fundamental form of $f$, and show that when $f$ has conformal sh…
The lengths of geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces satisfy intriguing equations, known as identities, relating these lengths to geometric quantities of the surface. This paper is about a large family of identities that relate lengths of closed geodesics and orthogeodesics to boundary lengths or number of cusps. These include, as particular cases, identities due to Basmajian, to McShane and to Mirzakhani and Tan-Wong-Zhang. In stark contrast to previous identities, the identities presented here include the lengths taken among all closed geodesics.
We prove the existence of $C^{1,1}$ isometric immersions of several classes of metrics on surfaces $(\mathcal{M},g)$ into the three-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^3$, where the metrics $g$ have strictly negative curvature. These include the standard hyperbolic plane, generalised helicoid-type metrics and generalised Enneper metrics. Our proof is based on the method of compensated compactness and invariant regions in hyperbolic conservation laws, together with several observations on the geometric quantities (Gauss curvature, metric components etc.) of negatively curved surfaces.
In this paper we show that the geodesic flow of a Finsler metric is Anosov if and only if there exists a $C^2$ open neighborhood of Finsler metrics all of whose closed geodesics are hyperbolic. For surfaces this result holds also for Riemannian metrics. This follows from a recent result of Contreras and Mazzucchelli. Furthermore, geodesic flows of Riemannian or Finsler metrics on surfaces are $C^2$ stably ergodic if and only if they are Anosov.
Given a globally hyperbolic spacetime endowed with a complete lightlike Killing vector field and a complete Cauchy hypersurface, we characterize the points which can be connected by geodesics. A straightforward consequence is the geodesic connectedness of globally hyperbolic generalized plane waves with a complete Cauchy hypersurface.
For a given simply connected Riemannian surface Sigma, we relate the problem of finding minimal isometric immersions of Sigma into S^2 x R or H^2 x R to a system of two partial differential equations on Sigma. We prove that a constant intrinsic curvature minimal surface in S^2 x R or H^2 x R is either totally geodesic or part of an associate surface of a certain limit of catenoids in H^2 x R. We also prove that if a non constant curvature Riemannian surface admits a continuous one-parameter family of minimal isometric immersions into S^2 x R or H^2 x R, then all these immersions are associate.
Given a geodesic line $γ$ the hyperbolic space $\mathbb H^n$ we formulate a necessary and sufficient condition for a function along this geodesic which measure the mean curvature of totally umbilical leaves of a foliation orthogonal to $γ$. Then we extend the result to $γ$ being a hypercycle i.e. a geodesic on a hypersurface equidistant from the totally geodesic one.
In hyperbolic space $H^n$ we set a geodesic ball of radius $ρ$. Consider a $k$ dimensional minimal submanifold passing through the origin of the geodesic ball with boundary lies on the boundary of that geodesic ball. We prove that its area is no less than the totally geodesic $k$ dimensional submanifold passing through the origin in that geodesic ball. This is a partial generalization of the corresponding problem in $R^n$.
We prove the existence of Alexandrov embedded closed magnetic geodesics on closed hyperbolic surfaces. Closed magnetic geodesics correspond to closed curves with prescribed geodesic curvature.
For a hyperbolic surface S of finite type we consider the set A(S) of angles between closed geodesics on S. Our main result is that there are only finitely many rational multiples of πin A(S).
In this paper we provide a pinching condition for the characterization of the totally geodesic disk and the rotational annulus among minimal surfaces with free boundary in geodesic balls of three-dimensional hyperbolic space and hemisphere. The pinching condition involves the length of the second fundamental form, the support function of the surface, and a natural potential function in hyperbolic space and hemisphere.
We classify pseudo-Riemannian submersions with connected totally geodesic fibres from a real pseudo-hyperbolic space onto a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Also, we obtain the classification of the pseudo-Riemannian submersions with (para-)complex connected totally geodesic fibres from a (para-)complex pseudo-hyperbolic space onto a pseudo-Riemannian manifold.
Motivated by the beautiful theory and the rich applications of harmonic conformal immersions and conformal immersions of constant mean curvature (CMC) surfaces, we study biharmonic conformal immersions of surfaces into a generic 3-manifold. We first derive an invariant equation for such immersions, we then try to answer the question, "what surfaces can be biharmonically conformally immersed into Euclidean 3-space?" We prove that a circular cylinder is the only CMC surface that can be biharmonically conformally immersed into a Euclidean 3-space; We obtain a classification of biharmonic conforma…
In this paper we study the non-geodesic non-null biharmonic curves in 3-dimensional hyperbolic Heisenberg group. We prove that all of the non-geodesic non-null biharmonic curves in 3-dimensional hyperbolic Heisenberg group are helices. Moreover, we obtain explicit parametric equations for non-geodesic non-null biharmonic curves and non-geodesic spacelike horizontal biharmonic curves in 3-dimensional hyperbolic Heisenberg group, respectively. We also show that there do not exist non-geodesic timelike horizontal biharmonic curves in 3-dimensional hyperbolic Heisenberg group.
