This is an expository article which describes one approach to the construction and classification of harmonic tori "of finite type", namely, via their ring of polynomial Killing fields. To keep the discussion focussed, the first section is devoted entirely to non-conformal harmonic tori in the 2-sphere. The second section summarizes the authors more recent work on pluri-harmonic maps into complex Grassmannians.
We show that all superconformal harmonic immersions from genus one surfaces into de Sitter spaces $ S ^ {2n}_1 $ with globally defined harmonic sequence are of finite-type and hence result merely from solving a pair of ordinary differential equations. As an application, we prove that all Willmore tori in $ S ^ 3 $ without umbilic points can be constructed in this simple way.
In this paper we investigate the space of harmonic maps from a 2-torus to $\mathbb{S}^3$ using the spectral curve correspondence and Whitham deformations. In an open and dense subset of a parameter space we find that the space of harmonic maps is smooth and has dimension two. We also show that the points that correspond to minimal tori (conformal harmonic maps) are either smooth points of dimension two or singular.
In this paper we give an explicit parametrisation of the moduli space of equivariant harmonic maps from a 2-torus to the 3-sphere. As Hitchin proved, a harmonic map of a 2-torus is described by its spectral data, which consists of a hyperelliptic curve together with a pair of differentials and a line bundle. The space of spectral data is naturally a fibre bundle over the space of spectral curves. For homogeneous tori the space of spectral curves is a disc and the bundle is trivial. For tori with a one-dimensional invariance group, we enumerate the path connected components of the space of spec…
A well-known question asks whether the spectrum of the Laplacian on a Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ determines the Riemannian metric $g$ up to isometry. A similar question is whether the energy spectrum of all harmonic maps from a given Riemannian manifold $(Σ,h)$ to $M$ determines the Riemannian metric on the target space. We consider this question in the case of harmonic maps between flat tori. In particular, we show that the two isospectral, non-isometric $16$-dimensional flat tori found by Milnor cannot be distinguished by the energy spectrum of harmonic maps from $d$-dimensional flat tori f…
The paper develops the fundamentals of quaternionic holomorphic curve theory. The holomorphic functions in this theory are conformal maps from a Riemann surface into the 4-sphere, i.e., the quaternionic projective line. Basic results such as the Riemann-Roch Theorem for quaternionic holomorphic vector bundles, the Kodaira embedding and the Pluecker relations for linear systems are proven. Interpretations of these results in terms of the differential geometry of surfaces in 3- and 4-space are hinted at throughout the paper. Applications to estimates of the Willmore functional on constant mean c…
This article shows that every non-isotropic harmonic 2-torus in complex projective space factors through a generalised Jacobi variety related to the spectral curve. Each map is composed of a homomorphism into the variety and a rational map off it. The same ideas allow one to construct (pluri)-harmonic maps of finite type from Euclidean space into Grassmannians and the projective unitary groups. Further, some of these maps will be purely algebraic. For maps into complex projective space the algebraic maps of the plane are always doubly periodic i.e. they yield 2-tori. The classification of all …
Biharmonic maps are generalizations of harmonic maps. A well-known result of Eells and Wood on harmonic maps between surfaces shows that there exists no harmonic map from a torus into a sphere (whatever the metrics chosen) in the homotopy class of maps of Brower degree $\pm 1$. It would be interesting to know if there exists any biharmonic map in that homotopy class of maps. In this paper, we obtain some classifications on biharmonic maps from a torus into a sphere, where the torus is provided with a flat or a class of non-flat metrics whilst the sphere is provided with the standard metric. Ou…
In this article I show that every special Lagrangian cone in C^3 determines, and is determined by, a primitive harmonic surface in the 6-symmetric space SU_3/SO_2. For cones over tori, this allows us to use the classification theory of harmonic tori to describe the construction of all the corresponding special Lagrangian cones. A parameter count is given for the space of these, and some examples found recently by Joyce are put into this context.
We use Whitham deformations to give a complete account of spectral data of real solutions of the sinh--Gordon equation of spectral genus 2. We parameterise the closure of spectral data of constant mean curvature tori in $\mathbb{R}^3$ by an isosceles right triangle and analyse its boundary. We prove that the Wente family, which is described by spectral data with real coefficients, is parameterised by the bisector of the right angle. Our methods combine blowups of Whitham deformations and spectral data in an innovative way that changes the underlying integrable system.
In this paper we study equivariant constrained Willmore tori in the 3-sphere. These tori admit a 1-parameter group of Möbius symmetries and are critical points of the Willmore energy under conformal variations. We show that the associated spectral curve of an equivariant torus is given by a double covering of $\mathbb C$ and classify equivariant constrained Willmore tori by the genus g of their spectral curve. In this case the spectral genus satisfies $g \leq 3.$
It is known that all weakly conformal Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian immersions of tori in the complex projective plane may be constructed by methods from integrable systems theory. This article describes the precise details of a construction which leads to a form of classification. The immersion is encoded as spectral data in a similar manner to the case of minimal Lagrangian tori in the complex projective plane, but the details require a careful treatment of both the "dressing construction" and the spectral data to deal with a loop of flat connexions which is quadratic in the loop paramet…
A Euclidean minimal torus with planar ends gives rise to an immersed Willmore torus in the conformal 3--sphere $S^3=\R^3\cup \{\infty\}$. The class of Willmore tori obtained this way is given a spectral theoretic characterization as the class of Willmore tori with reducible spectral curve. A spectral curve of this type is necessarily the double of the spectral curve of an elliptic KP soliton. The simplest possible examples of minimal tori with planar ends are related to 1--gap Lamé potentials, the simplest non--trivial algebro geometric KdV potentials. If one allows for translational periods, …
The normalized eigenvalues $Λ_i(M,g)$ of the Laplace-Beltrami operator can be considered as functionals on the space of all Riemannian metrics $g$ on a fixed surface $M$. In recent papers several explicit examples of extremal metrics were provided. These metrics are induced by minimal immersions of surfaces in $\mathbb{S}^3$ or $\mathbb{S}^4$. In the present paper a family of extremal metrics induced by minimal immersions in $\mathbb{S}^5$ is provided.
Constant mean curvature (CMC) tori in Euclidean 3-space are described by an algebraic curve, called the spectral curve, together with a line bundle on this curve and a point on $ S ^ 1 $, called the Sym point. For a given spectral curve the possible choices of line bundle and Sym point are easily described. The space of spectral curves of tori is totally disconnected. Hence to characterise the "moduli space" of CMC tori one should, for each genus $g$, determine the closure $\overline{\mathcal{P}^g}$ of spectral curves of CMC tori within the spectral curves of CMC planes having spectral genus $…
Constrained Willmore surfaces are critical points of the Willmore functional under conformal variations. As shown in [5] one can associate to any conformally immersed constrained Willmore torus f a compact Riemann surface Σ, such that f can be reconstructed in terms of algebraic data on Σ. Particularly interesting examples of constrained Willmore tori are the tori with constant mean curvature (CMC) in a 3-dimensional space form. It is shown in [14] and in [16] that the spectral curves of these tori are hyperelliptic. In this paper we show under mild conditions that a constrained Willmore torus…
We study the action of conformal transformations of the ambient space on the Dirac operator coming into the Weierstrass (or spinor) representation of a torus in the Euclidean four-space. It is showed that such an action generates a flow acting on the potential of the operator, that this flow is described by a nonlinear system of the Melnikov type and that it preserves the Floquet multipliers of the Dirac operator with double-periodic potential. However this flow is only almost isospectral since it does not preserve the spectral curve in general and its action may result in adding or removing m…
Minimal tori that are linearly full in the 3-sphere possess a natural invariant g called their spectral genus, which was introduced by Hitchin. We show that for each g>0, there are countably many real g-dimensional families of minimally immersed tori with spectral genus g (two of these dimensions are just reparametrisations of the torus). Each family maps from a fixed torus of rectangular conformal type.
The spectral curve correspondence for finite-type solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation describes how they arise from and give rise to hyperelliptic curves with a real structure. Constant mean curvature (CMC) 2-tori in $ S ^ 3 $ result when these spectral curves satisfy periodicity conditions. We prove that the spectral curves of CMC tori are dense in the space of smooth spectral curves of finite-type solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation. One consequence of this is the existence of countably many real $ n $-dimensional families of CMC tori in $ S ^ 3 $ for each positive integer $ n $.
This article studies the harmonicity of vector fields on Riemannian manifolds, viewed as maps into the tangent bundle equipped with a family of Riemannian metrics. Geometric and topological rigidity conditions are obtained, especially for surfaces and vector fields of constant norm, and existence is proved on two-tori. Classifications are given for conformal, quadratic and Killing vector fields on spheres. Finally, the class of metric considered on the tangent bundle is enlarged, permitting new vector fields to become harmonic.
We introduce the moduli space of spectral curves of constant mean curvature (\cmc\hspace{-5pt}) cylinders of finite type in the round unit 3-sphere. The subset of spectral curves of mean-convex Alexandrov embedded cylinders is explicitly determined using a combination of integrable systems and geometric analysis techniques. We prove that these cylinders are surfaces of revolution. As a consequence all mean-convex Alexandrov embedded {\sc{cmc}} tori in the 3-sphere are surfaces of revolution.
Otsuki tori form a countable family of immersed minimal two-dimensional tori in the unitary three-dimensional sphere. According to El Soufi-Ilias theorem, the metrics on the Otsuki tori are extremal for some unknown eigenvalues of the Laplace-Beltrami operator. Despite the fact that the Otsuki tori are defined in quite an implicit way, we find explicitly the numbers of the corresponding extremal eigenvalues. In particular we provide an extremal metric for the third eigenvalue of the torus.
Extremal spectral properties of the Lawson tori are studied. A Lawson torus carries an extremal metric for some eigenvalue of the Laplace-Beltrami operator. The main result of this paper is that the number of this eigenvalue is expressed in terms of fundamental tones of auxiliary periodic Sturm-Liouville problems.
The bienergy of smooth maps between Riemannian manifolds, when restricted to unit vector fields, yields two different variational problems depending on whether one takes the full functional or just the vertical contribution. Their critical points, called biharmonic unit vector fields and biharmonic unit sections, form different sets. Working with surfaces, we first obtain general characterizations of biharmonic unit vector fields and biharmonic unit sections under conformal change of the metric. In the case of a 2-dimensional torus, this leads to a proof that biharmonic unit sections are alway…
To each non-isotropic almost-complex immersion of a 2-torus into $ S ^ 6 $ we associate an algebraic curve, called the spectral curve, and a linear flow in the intersection of two Prym varieties on this spectral curve. We show that generically the spectral curve is smooth and compute the dimension of the moduli space of such curves and of the torus in which the eigenline bundles lie.
The Clifford torus is a torus in a three-dimensional sphere. Homogeneous tori are simple generalization of the Clifford torus which still in a three-dimensional sphere. There is a way to construct tori in a three-dimensional sphere using the Hopf fibration. In this paper, all Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian tori which is contained in a hypersphere in the complex Euclidean plane are constructed explicitly. Then it is shown that they are homogeneous tori. For the construction, flat quaternionic connections of Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian tori are considered and a spectral curve of an asso…
We prove upper and lower bounds for the eigenvalues of the Dirac operator and the Laplace operator on 2-dimensional tori. In particluar we give a lower bound for the first eigenvalue of the Dirac operator for non-trivial spin structures. It is the only explicit estimate for eigenvalues of the Dirac operator known so far that uses information about the spin structure. As a corollary we obtain lower bounds for the Willmore functional of a torus embedded into S_3. In the final section we compare Dirac spectra for two different spin structures on an arbitrary Riemannian spin manifold.
This paper focuses on the development of harmonic and Clifford analysis techniques in the context of some conformally flat manifolds that arise from factoring out a simply-connected domain from $R^n$ by special arithmetic subgroups of the conformal group. Our discussion encompasses in particular the Hopf manifold $S^1 \times S^{n-1}$, conformally flat cylinders and tori and some conformally flat manifolds of genus $g \ge 2$, such as $k$-handled tori and polycylinders. This paper provides a continuation as well as an extension of our previous two papers \cite{KraRyan1,KraRyan2}. In particular, …
The $i$-th eigenvalue $λ_i$ of the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a surface can be considered as a functional on the space of all Riemannian metrics of unit volume on this surface. Surprisingly only few examples of extremal metrics for these functionals are known. In the present paper a new countable family of extremal metrics on the torus is provided.
This article determines the spectral data, in the integrable systems sense, for all weakly conformally immersed Hamiltonian stationary Lagrangian in $\R^4$. This enables us to describe their moduli space and the locus of branch points of such an immersion. This is also an informative example in integrable systems geometry, since the group of ambient isometries acts non-trivially on the spectral data and the relevant energy functional (the area) need not be constant under deformations by higher flows.
We consider the combinatorial Laplacian on a sequence of discrete tori which approximate the m-dimensional torus. In the special case m=1, Friedli and Karlsson derived an asymptotic expansion of the corresponding spectral zeta function in the critical strip, as the approximation parameter goes to infinity. There, the authors have also formulated a conjecture on this asymptotics, that is equivalent to the Riemann conjecture. In this paper, inspired by the work of Friedli and Karlsson, we prove that a similar asymptotic expansion holds for m=2. Similar argument applies to higher dimensions as we…
The multiplier spectral curve of a conformal torus in the 4-sphere is essentially, see arXiv:0712.2311, given by all Darboux transforms of the conformal torus. In the particular case when the conformal immersion is a Hamiltonian stationary torus in Euclidean 4-space, the left normal of the immersion is harmonic, hence we can associate a second Riemann surface: the eigenline spectral curve of the left normal, as defined by Hitchin. We show that the multiplier spectral curve of a Hamiltonian stationary torus and the eigenline spectral curve of its left normal are biholomorphic Riemann surfaces o…
This article has two purposes. The first is to give an expository account of the integrable systems approach to harmonic maps from surfaces to Lie groups and symmetric spaces, focusing on spectral curves for harmonic 2-tori. The most unwieldy aspect of the spectral curve description is the periodicity conditions and the second aim is to present four different forms for these periodicity conditions and explain their equivalence.
Constant mean curvature surfaces in $S^3$ can be studied via their associated family of flat connections. In the case of tori this approach has led to a deep understanding of the moduli space of all CMC tori. For compact CMC surfaces of higher genus the theory is far more involved due to the non abelian nature of their fundamental group. In this paper we extend the spectral curve theory for tori developed in \cite{Hi, PiSt} and for genus $2$ surfaces \cite{He3} to CMC surfaces in $S^3$ of genus $g=k\cdot l$ with commuting $\mathbb Z_{k+1}$ and $\mathbb Z_{l+1}$ symmetries. We determine their a…
The quaternionic KP hierarchy is the integrable hierarchy of p.d.e obtained by replacing the complex numbers with the quaternions, mutatis mutandis, in the standard construction of the KP hierarchy equations and solutions; it is equivalent to what is often called the Davey-Stewartson II hierarchy. This article studies its relationship with the theory of quaternionic holomorphic 2-tori in HP^1 (which are equivalent to conformally immersed 2-tori in S^4). After describing how the Sato-Segal-Wilson construction of KP solutions (particularly solutions of finite type) carries over to this quaternio…
We show how to assign to any immersed torus in $\R^3$ or $S^3$ a Riemann surface such that the immersion is described by functions defined on this surface. We call this surface the spectrum or the spectral curve of the torus. The spectrum contains important information about conformally invariant properties of the torus and, in particular, relates to the Willmore functional. We propose a simple proof that for isothermic tori in $\R^3$ (this class includes constant mean curvature tori and tori of revolution) the spectrum is invariant with respect to conformal transformations of $\R^3$. We show …
We associate a periodic two-dimensional Schrodinger operator to every Lagrangian torus in CP^2 and define the spectral curve of a torus as the Floquet spectrum of this operator on the zero energy level. In this event minimal Lagrangian tori correspond to potential operators. We show that Novikov-Veselov hierarchy of equations induces integrable deformations of minimal Lagrangian torus in CP^2 preserving the spectral curve. We also show that the highest flows on the space of smooth periodic solutions of the Tzizeica equation are given by the Novikov-Veselov hierarchy.
In this note, we prove the magnetic spectral gap-labelling conjecture as stated in [arXiv:1508.01064], in all dimensions, for principal solenoidal tori.
This paper is devoted to the study of minimal immersions of flat $n$-tori into spheres, especially those immersed by the first eigenfunctions (such immersion is called $λ_1$-minimal immersion), which also play important roles in spectral geometry. It is known that there are only two non-congruent $λ_1$-minimal $2$-tori in spheres, which are both flat. For higher dimensional case, the Clifford $n$-torus in $\mathbb{S}^{2n-1}$ might be the only known example in the literature. In this paper, by discussing the general construction of homogeneous minimal flat $n$-tori in spheres, we construct many…