We show that the sum of the Morse index and the nullity of Willmore immersions of bounded energy is lower semi-continuous without assuming that the limiting immersion and the bubbles are free of branch points. Our proof is based on a refined analysis of the properties of two families of fourth-order differential operators with regular singularities that depend on a parameter equal to the order of the branch points. The most technical results that justify the length of the article are Gagliardo-Nirenberg-Rellich inequalities in degenerating annuli that are necessary to show that the eigenvalues of the index operator with respect to a suitable weight are bounded from below.
In this paper we prove a convergence result for sequences of Willmore immersions with simple minimal bubbles. To this end we replace the total curvature control in T. Rivière's proof of the $\varepsilon$-regularity for Willmore immersions by a control of the local Willmore energy.
In this paper we classify branched Willmore spheres with at most three branch points (including multiplicity), showing that they may be obtained from complete minimal surfaces in $\R ^ 3$ with ends of multiplicity at most three. This extends the classification result of Bryant. We then show that this may be applied to the analysis of singularities of the Willmore flow of non-Willmore spheres with Willmore energy $ \mc {W} (f) \leq 16π$.
We extend the classification of Robert Bryant of Willmore spheres in $S^3$ to variational branched Willmore spheres $S^3$ and show that they are inverse stereographic projections of complete minimal surfaces with finite total curvature in $\mathbb{R}^3$ and vanishing flux. We also obtain a classification of variational branched Willmore spheres in $S^4$, generalising a theorem of Sebástian Montiel. As a result of our asymptotic analysis at branch points, we obtain an improved $C^{1,1}$ regularity of the unit normal of variational branched Willmore surfaces in arbitrary codimension. We also pro…
We obtain in arbitrary codimension a removability result on the order of singularity of weak limits and bubbles of Willmore immersions measured by the second residue. This permits to reduce significantly the number of possible bubbling scenarii. As a consequence, out of the twelve families of non-planar minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of total curvature greater than $-12π$, only three of them may occur as conformal images of bubbles of Willmore immersions.
We develop a general method to compute the Morse index of branched Willmore spheres and show that the Morse index is equal to the index of certain matrix whose dimension is equal to the number of ends of the dual minimal surface. As a corollary, we find that for all immersed Willmore spheres $\vecΦ:S^2\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^3$ such that $W(\vecΦ)=4πn$, we have $\mathrm{Ind}_{W}(\vecΦ)\leq n-1$
We provide a computer-assisted proof of the holomorphy of the quartic and the octic meromorphic differentials arising in the main Theorem 4.11 of our paper 'The Classification of Branched Willmore spheres in the $3$-Sphere and the $4$-Sphere' (arXiv:1706.01405), using the free mathematical software Sage.
We obtain in arbitrary codimension a removability result on the order of singularity of Willmore surfaces realising the width of Willmore min-max problems on spheres. As a consequence, out of the twelve families of non-planar minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of total curvature greater than $-12π$, only three of them may occur as conformal images of bubbles in Willmore min-max problems.
This paper studies the regularity of constrained Willmore immersions into $\R^{m\ge3}$ locally around both "regular" points and around branch points, where the immersive nature of the map degenerates. We develop local asymptotic expansions for the immersion, its first, and its second derivatives, given in terms of residues which are computed as circulation integrals. We deduce explicit "point removability" conditions ensuring that the immersion is smooth. Our results apply in particular to Willmore immersions and to parallel mean curvature immersions in any codimension.
In this paper we build an explicit example of a minimal bubble on a Willmore surface, showing there cannot be compactness for Willmore immersions of Willmore energy above $16 π$. Additionnally we prove an inequality on the second residue for limits sequences of Willmore immersions with simple minimal bubbles. Doing so, we exclude some gluing configurations and prove compactness for immersed Willmore tori of energy below $12 π$.
We consider a closed Willmore surface properly immersed in ${\R}^m$ (m>2) with square-integrable second fundamental form, and with one point-singularity of finite arbitrary integer order. Using the "conservative" reformulation of the Willmore equation introduced in a previous paper by the second author, we show that, in an appropriate conformal parametrization, the gradient of the Gauss map of the immersion has bounded mean oscillations if the singularity has order one, and is bounded if the order is at least two. We develop around the singular point local asymptotic expansions for the immersi…
In this work we present new fundamental tools for studying the variations of the Willmore functional of immersed surfaces into $R^m$. This approach gives for instance a new proof of the existence of a Willmore minimizing embedding of an arbitrary closed surface in arbitrary codimension. We explain how the same approach can solve constraint minimization problems for the Willmore functional. We show in particular that, for a given closed surface and a given conformal class for this surface, there is an immersion in $R^m$, away possibly from isolated branched points, which minimizes the Willmore …
Using the reformulation in divergence form of the Euler-Lagrange equation for the Willmore functional as it was developed in "Analysis of the Willmore Functional" by T. Riviere (Invent. Math. 174), we study the limit of a local Palais-Smale sequence of weak Willmore immersions with locally square-integrable second fundamental form. We show that the limit immersion is smooth and that it satisfies the conformal Willmore equation: it is a critical point of the Willmore functional restricted to infinitesimal conformal variations.
We show that the quantization of energy for Willmore spheres into closed Riemannian manifolds holds provided that the Willmore energy and the area are uniformly bounded. The analogous energy quantization result holds for Willmore surfaces of arbitrary genus, under the additional assumptions that the immersion maps weakly converge to a limiting (possibly branched, weak immersion) map from the same surface, and that the conformal structures stay in a compact domain of the moduli space.
For every two-dimensional torus $T^2$ and every $k\in \mathbb{N}$, $k\ge 3$, we construct a conformal Willmore immersion $f:T^2\to \mathbb{R}^4$ with exactly one point of density $k$ and Willmore energy $4πk$. Moreover, we show that the energy value $8π$ cannot be attained by such an immersion. Additionally, we characterize the branched double covers $T^2\to S^2 \times \{0\}$ as the only branched conformal immersions, up to Möbius transformations of $\mathbb{R}^4$, from a torus into $\mathbb{R}^4$ with at least one branch point and Willmore energy $8π$. Using a perturbation argument in order t…
In this paper, we firstly extend Theorem 5.1.1 in \cite {Helein} due to Hélein to a rescaled branched conformal immersed sequence(c.f. Theorem 1.5). By virtue of this local convergence theorem, we study the blowup behavior of a sequence of branched conformal immersions of closed Riemannian surface in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ with uniformly bounded areas and Willmore energies. Furthermore, we prove that the integral identity of Gauss curvature is true.
In this paper we show a quantitative rigidity result for the minimizer of the Willmore functional among all projective planes in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with $n\ge 4$. We also construct an explicit counterexample to a corresponding rigidity result in codimension one, by showing that an Enneper surface might split-off during a blow-up process. For conformal immersions of spheres with large enough Willmore energies, we construct explicit counterexamples to a quantitative rigidity result and this complements the recently obtained rigidity results in [LaNg13].
The paper is devoted to the variational analysis of the Willmore, and other L^2 curvature functionals, among immersions of 2-dimensional surfaces into a compact riemannian m-manifold (M^m,h) with m>2. The goal of the paper is twofold, on one hand, we give the right setting for doing the calculus of variations (including min max methods) of such functionals for immersions into manifolds and, on the other hand, we prove existence results for possibly branched Willmore spheres under various constraints (prescribed homotopy class, prescribed area) or under curvature assumptions for M^m. To this ai…
In this paper we provide a systematic treatment of Willmore surfaces with orientation reversing symmetries and illustrate the theory by (old and new) examples. We apply our theory to isotropic Willmore two-spheres in $S^4$ and derive a necessary condition for such ( possibly branched) isotropic surfaces to descend to (possibly branched) maps from $\mathbb{R} P^2$ to $S^4$. The Veronese sphere and several other examples of non-branched Willmore immersions from $\mathbb{R} P^2$ to $S^4$ are derived as an illustration of the general theory. The Willmore immersions of $\mathbb{R} P^2$, just mentio…
The family of Willmore immersions from a Riemann surface into $S^{n+2}$ can be divided naturally into the subfamily of Willmore surfaces conformally equivalent to a minimal surface in $\R^{n+2}$ and those which are not conformally equivalent to a minimal surface in $\R^{n+2}$. On the level of their conformal Gauss maps into $Gr_{1,3}(\R^{1,n+3})=SO^+(1,n+3)/SO^+(1,3)\times SO(n)$ these two classes of Willmore immersions into $S^{n+2}$ correspond to conformally harmonic maps for which every image point, considered as a 4-dimensional Lorentzian subspace of $\R^{1,n+3}$, contains a fixed lightlik…
We obtain an upper bound for the Morse index of Willmore spheres $Σ\subset S^3$ coming from an immersion of $S^2$. The quantization of Willmore energy shows that there exists an integer $m$ such that $\mathscr{W}(Σ)=4πm$. Then we show that $\mathrm{Ind}_{\mathscr{W}}(Σ)\leq m$. The proof relies on an explicit computation relating the second derivative of $\mathscr{W}$ for $Σ$ with the Jacobi operator of the minimal surface in $\mathbb{R}^3$ it is the image of by stereographic projection thanks of the fundamental classification of Robert Bryant.
Let $ X: M \hook S^5$ be a compact Legendrian surface in pseudoconformal(CR) 5-sphere. We introduce a pseudoconformally invariant Willmore type second order functional $ \W(X)$, and study its critical points called Willmore Legendrian surfaces. The fifth order structure equations show that Willmore dual can be defined for a class of Willmore Legendrian surfaces. Moreover when this dual is constant, Willmore Legendrian surface admits a Weierstraßtype representation in terms of immersed meromorphic curve in $ \C^2$ satisfying an appropriate real period condition via pseudoconformal stereographic…
We show that any 2-valued C^{1, α} (α\in (0, 1)) function u = {u_{1}, u_{2}} on an open ball B in {\mathbb R}^{n} with values u_{1}, u_{2} \in {\mathbb R}^{k} whose graph, viewed as a varifold with multiplicity 2 at points where u_{1} = u_{2} and with multiplicity 1 at points where u_{1}, u_{2} are distinct, is stationary in the cylinder B \times {\mathbb R}^{k} must be a C^{1, 1/2} function, and the set of its branch points, if non-empty, must have Hausdorff dimension (n-2) and locally positive (n-2)-dimensional Hausdorff measure. The C^{1, 1/2} regularity is optimal.
Constrained Willmore surfaces are conformal immersions of Riemann surfaces that are critical points of the Willmore energy $W=\int H^2$ under compactly supported infinitesimal conformal variations. Examples include all constant mean curvature surfaces in space forms. In this paper we investigate more generally the critical points of arbitrary geometric functionals on the space of immersions under the constraint that the admissible variations infinitesimally preserve the conformal structure. Besides constrained Willmore surfaces we discuss in some detail examples of constrained minimal and volu…
We prove that the critical points of various energies such as the area, the Willmore energy, the frame energy for tori...etc among possibly branched immersions constrained to evolve within a smooth sub-manifold of the Teichmüller space satisfy the corresponding constrained Euler Lagrange equation. We deduce that critical points of the Willmore energy or the frame energy for tori are smooth analytic surfaces, away possibly from isolated branched points, under the condition that either the genus is at most 2 or if the sub-manifold does not intersect the subspace of hyper-elliptic points. Using a…
The Willmore conjecture states that any immersion F:T^2 -> R^n of a 2-torus into flat euclidean space satisfies $\int_{T^2} H^2\geq 2π^2$. We prove it under the condition that the L^p-norm of the Gaussian curvature is sufficiently small.
An isometric immersion $x:M^n\rightarrow S^{n+p}$ is called Willmore if it is an extremal submanifold of the Willmore functional: $W(x)=\int_{M^n} (S-nH^2)^{\frac{n}{2}}dv$, where $S$ is the norm square of the second fundamental form and $H$ is the mean curvature. Examples of Willmore submanifolds in the unit sphere are scarce in the literature. The present paper gives a series of new examples of Willmore submanifolds in the unit sphere via isoparametric functions of FKM-type.
In the present work we study the behavior of sequences of smooth global isothermic immersions of a given closed surface and having a uniformly bounded total curvature. We prove that, if the conformal class of this sequence is bounded in the Moduli space of the surface, it weakly converges in W^{2,2} away from finitely many points, modulo extraction of a subsequence, to a possibly branched weak isothermic immersion of this surface. Moreover, if this limit happens to be smooth away from the branched points, we give an optimal description of the possible loss of strong compactness of such a subse…
The Weierstrass representation for spheres in $\R^3$ and, in particular, effective construction of immersions from data of spectral theory origin is discussed. These data are related to Dirac operators on a plane and on an infinite cylinder and these operators are just representations of Dirac operators acting in spinor bundles over the two-sphere which is naturally obtained as a completion of a plane or of a cylinder. Spheres described in terms of Dirac operators with one-dimensional potentials on a cylinder are completely studied and, in particular, for them a lower estimate of the Willmore …
We show, that higher analogs of the Willmore functional, defined on the space of immersions M^2\rightarrow R^3, where M^2 is a two-dimensional torus, R^3 is the 3-dimensional Euclidean space are invariant under conformal transformations of R^3. This hypothesis was formulated recently by I.A.Taimanov (dg-ga/9610013). Higher analogs of the Willmore functional are defined in terms of the Modified Novikov-Veselov hierarchy. This soliton hierarchy is associated with the zero-energy scattering problem for the two-dimensional Dirac operator.
Branch points of a real 2-surface S in a 4-manifold M generalize the branch points of complex curves in complex surfaces: for example, they can occur as singularities of minimal surfaces. We investigate such a branch point p when S is topologically embedded in M. It defines a link L(p), the components of which are closed braids with the same axis up to orientation. If S is closed without boundary, the contribution of p to the degree of the normal bundle of S in M can be computed on the link L(p) in terms of the algebraic crossing numbers of its components and on their linking numbers one with …
It was proved by Montiel and Ros that for each conformal structure on a compact surface there is at most one metric which admits a minimal immersion into some unit sphere by first eigenfunctions. We generalize this theorem to the setting of metrics with conical singularities induced from branched minimal immersions by first eigenfunctions into spheres. Our primary motivation is the fact that metrics realizing maxima of the first non-zero Laplace eigenvalue are induced by minimal branched immersions into spheres. In particular, we show that the properties of such metrics induced from $\mathbb{S…
The Teichmüller harmonic map flow is a gradient flow for the harmonic map energy of maps from a closed surface to a general closed Riemannian target manifold of any dimension, where both the map and the domain metric are allowed to evolve. Given a weak solution of the flow that exists for all time $t\geq 0$, we find a sequence of times $t_i\to\infty$ at which the flow at different scales converges to a collection of branched minimal immersions with no loss of energy. We do this by developing a compactness theory, establishing no loss of energy, for sequences of almost-minimal maps. Moreover, w…
The paper is devoted to study the Dirichelet energy of moving frames on 2-dimensional tori immersed in the euclidean $3\leq m$-dimensional space. This functional, called Frame energy, is naturally linked to the Willmore energy of the immersion and on the conformal structure of the abstract underlying surface. As first result, a Willmore-conjecture type lower bound is established : namely for every torus immersed in $\R^m$, $m\geq 3$, and any moving frame on it, the frame energy is at least $2π^2$ and equalty holds if and only if $m\geq 4$, the immersion is the standard Clifford torus (up to ro…
School of Mathematics and Statistics, FJKLAMA, Key Laboratory of Analytical Mathematics and Applications (Ministry of Education), Fujian Normal University（福建师范大学数学与统计学院，福建省矩阵分析与计算重点实验室（教育部），分析数学与应用重点实验室）
We prove the existence of (branched) conformal immersions F: S^2 -> R^3 with mean curvature H > 0 arbitrarily prescribed up to a 3-dimensional affine indeterminacy. A similar result is proved for the space forms S^3, H^3 and partial results for surfaces of higher genus.
An equivariant minimal surface in $\mathbb{CH}^n$ is a minimal map of the Poincaré disc into $\mathbb{CH}^n$ which intertwines two actions of the fundamental group of a closed surface $Σ$: a Fuchsian representation on the disc and an irreducible action by isometries on $\mathbb{CH}^n$. The moduli space of these can been studied by relating it to the nilpotent cone in each moduli space of $PU(n,1)$-Higgs bundles over the conformal surface corresponding to the map. By providing a necessary condition for points on this nilpotent cone to be smooth this article shows that away from the points corre…
We study the new geometric flow that was introduced in [11] that evolves a pair of map and (domain) metric in such a way that it changes appropriate initial data into branched minimal immersions. In the present paper we focus on the existence theory as well as the issue of uniqueness of solutions. We establish that a (weak) solution exists for as long as the metrics remain in a bounded region of moduli space, i.e. as long as the flow does not collapse a closed geodesic in the domain manifold to a point. Furthermore, we prove that this solution is unique in the class of all weak solutions with …
We prove that a sequence of possibly branched, weak immersions of the two-sphere $S^2$ into an arbitrary compact riemannian manifold $(M^m,h)$ with uniformly bounded area and uniformly bounded $L^2-$norm of the second fundamental form either collapse to a point or weakly converges as current, modulo extraction of a subsequence, to a Lipschitz mapping of $S^2$ and whose image is made of a connected union of finitely many, possibly branched, weak immersions of $S^2$ with finite total curvature. We prove moreover that if the sequence belongs to a class $γ$ of $π_2(M^m)$ the limiting lipschitz map…
Minimal surfaces in a Riemannian manifold $M^n$ are surfaces which are stationary for area: the first variation of area vanishes. In this paper we focus on surfaces of the topological type of the real projective plane $\R P^2$. We show that a minimal surface $f:\R P^2\to M^3$ which has the smallest area, among those mappings which are not homotopic to a constant mapping, is an immersion. That is, $f$ is free of branch points. As a major step toward treating minimal surfaces of the type of the projective plane, we extend the fundamental theorem of branched immersions to the nonorientable case. …
A conformal immersion of a 2-torus into the 4-sphere is characterized by an auxiliary Riemann surface, its spectral curve. This complex curve encodes the monodromies of a certain Dirac type operator on a quaternionic line bundle associated to the immersion. The paper provides a detailed description of the geometry and asymptotic behavior of the spectral curve. If this curve has finite genus the Dirichlet energy of a map from a 2-torus to the 2-sphere or the Willmore energy of an immersion from a 2-torus into the 4-sphere is given by the residue of a specific meromorphic differential on the cur…
We present the min-max construction of critical points of the area using penalization arguments. Precisely, for any immersion of a closed surface $Σ$ into a given closed manifold, we add to the area Lagrangian a term equal to the $L^q$ norm of the second fundamental form of the immersion times a "viscosity" parameter. This relaxation of the area functional satisfies the Palais-Smale condition for $q>2$. This permits to construct critical points of the relaxed Lagrangian using classical min-max arguments such as the mountain pass lemma. The goal of this work is to describe the passage to the li…
We desingularize a branch point $p$ of a minimal disk $F_0(\mathbb{D})$ in $\mathbb{R}^4$ through immersions $F_t$'s which have only transverse double points and are branched covers of the plane tangent to $F_0(\mathbb{D})$ at $p$. If $F_0$ is a topological embedding and thus defines a knot in a sphere/cylinder around the branch point, the data of the double points of the $F_t$'s give us a braid representation of this knot as a product of bands.
