The theory of surfaces in Euclidean space can be naturally formulated in the more general context of Legendre surfaces into the space of contact elements. We address the question of deformability of Legendre surfaces with respect to the symmetry group of Lie sphere contact transformations from the point of view of the deformation theory of submanifolds in homogeneous spaces. Necessary and sufficient conditions are provided for a Legendre surface to admit non-trivial deformations and the corresponding existence problem is discussed.
We describe infinitesimal deformations of constant mean curvature surfaces of finite type in the 3-sphere. We use Baker-Akhiezer functions to describe such deformations, as well as polynomial Killing fields and the corresponding spectral curve to distinguish between isospectral and non-isospectral deformations.
In this paper we numerically construct CMC deformations of the Lawson minimal surfaces $ξ_{g,1}$ using a spectral curve and a DPW approach to CMC surfaces in spaceforms.
We construct non-trivial continuous isospectral deformations of Riemannian metrics on the ball and on the sphere in $\R^n$ for every $n\geq 9$. The metrics on the sphere can be chosen arbitrarily close to the round metric; in particular, they can be chosen to be positively curved. The metrics on the ball are both Dirichlet and Neumann isospectral and can be chosen arbitrarily close to the flat metric.
The aim of the paper is to investigate the rigidity and the deformability of pseudoholomorphic curves in the nearly K{ä}hler sphere $\mathbb{S}^6,$ among minimal surfaces in spheres. Under various assumptions we describe the moduli space of all noncongruent minimal surfaces $f\colon M\to\mathbb{S}^n$ that are isometric to a pseudoholomorphic curve in $\mathbb{S}^6.$ Moreover, we prove a Schur type theorem (see \cite[p. 36]{Chnew}) for minimal surfaces in spheres.
Associated to every complete affine 3-manifold M with nonsolvable fundamental group is a noncompact hyperbolic surface S. We classify such complete affine structures when Sigma is homeomorphic to a three-holed sphere. In particular, for every such complete hyperbolic surface Sigma, the deformation space identifies with two opposite octants in R^3. Furthermore every M admits a fundamental polyhedron bounded by crooked planes. Therefore M is homeomorphic to an open solid handlebody of genus two. As an explicit application of this theory, we construct proper affine deformations of an arithmetic F…
This paper applies the authors' forthcoming work, "Affine deformations of a three-holed sphere" in Lorentzian geometry to prove a result in hyperbolic geometry. Namely, an infinitesimal deformation of a hyperbolic structure of a three-holed sphere which infinitesimally lengthens the three boundary components infinitesimally lengthens every closed geodesic. The proof interprets the derivative of the geodesic length function as the Margulis invariant (signed marked Lorentzian length spectrum) of the corresponding affine deformation. The aforementioned results imply that the affine deformation is…
In [5], together with J. C. Wood, the authors gave a completely explicit formula for all harmonic maps from $2$-spheres to the unitary group $U(n)$ in terms of freely chosen meromorphic functions on $S^2$. The simplest harmonic maps are the isotropic ones. Using Morse theory Burstall and Guest [1] showed that the harmonic maps come in clusters labeled by the isotropic ones. In this work, using the formula for harmonic maps aforementioned, we describe explicitly this procedure, showing how all harmonic maps can be built from the isotropic ones. [1] F.~E.\ Burstall and M.~A.\ Guest, \textit{Harm…
It was shown by Ramanathan \cite{R} that any compact oriented non-simply-connected minimal surface in the three-dimensional round sphere admits at most a finite set of pairwise noncongruent minimal isometric immersions. Here we show that this result extends to isotropic surfaces in spheres of arbitrary dimension. The case of non-compact isotropic surfaces in space forms is also addressed.
A compact semisimple Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$ induces a Poisson structure $π$ on the unit sphere $S$ in $\mathfrak{g}^*$. We compute the moduli space of Poisson structures on $S$ around $π$. This is the first explicit computation of a Poisson moduli space in dimension greater or equal than three around a degenerate (i.e. not symplectic) Poisson structure.
In a 1983 paper with Frank Warner, we proved that the space of all great circle fibrations of the 3-sphere S^3 deformation retracts to the subspace of Hopf fibrations, and so has the homotopy type of a pair of disjoint two-spheres. Since that time, no generalization of this result to higher dimensions has been found, and so we narrow our sights here and show that in an infinitesimal sense explained below, the space of all smooth oriented great circle fibrations of the 2n+1 sphere S^(2n+1) deformation retracts to its subspace of Hopf fibrations. The tools gathered to prove this also serve to sh…
We propose a unified computational framework for the problem of deformation and rigidity of submanifolds in a homogeneous space under geometric constraint. A notion of 1-rigidity of a submanifold under admissible deformations is introduced. It measures how a deformation deviates from a one parameter family of motions up to 1st order. We implement this method to rigidity of CR submanifolds in spheres. A class of submanifolds called Bochner rigid submanifolds are shown to be 1-rigid under type preserving CR deformations. This 1-rigidity is then extended to a local rigidity, which roughly states …
We study the envelopes of meromorphy of neighborhoods of symplectically immersed two-spheres in complex Kähler surfaces using the Gromov's theory of pseudoholomorphic curves. The construction of a complete family of holomorphic deformations of a non-compact complex curve in a complex manifold, parametrized by a finite codimension analytic subset of a Banach ball, is given. The existence of this family is used to prove a generalization of Levi's continuity principle, which is applied to describe envelopes of meromorphy.
We prove that the group of strict contactomorphisms of the standard tight contact structure on the three-sphere deformation retracts to its unitary subgroup U(2).
Using a hyperKähler rotation on complex structures of a Calabi-Yau 2-fold and rolling of an isotropic 2-submanifold in a symplectic 6-manifold, we construct, by gluing, a natural family of immersed Lagrangian deformations of a branched covering of a special Lagrangian 3-sphere in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold and study how they deviate from being deformable to a family of special Lagrangian deformations by examining in detail Joyce's criteria on this family. The result suggests a potential image-support rigidity of A-branes that wrap around a special Lagrangian 3-sphere in a Calabi-Yau 3-fold, which res…
We present a deformation for constant mean curvature tori in the 3-sphere. We show that the moduli space of equivariant constant mean curvature tori in the 3-sphere is connected, and we classify the minimal, the embedded, and the Alexandrov embedded tori therein. We conclude with an instability result.
We prove that the only exact Lagrangian submanifolds in an ALE space are spheres. ALE spaces are the simply connected hyperkahler manifolds which at infinity look like C^2/G for any finite subgroup G of SL(2,C). They can be realized as the plumbing of copies of the cotangent bundle of a 2-sphere according to ADE Dynkin diagrams. The proof relies on symplectic cohomology.
Starting from $g$-natural pseudo-Riemannian metrics of suitable signature on the unit tangent sphere bundle $T_1 M$ of a Riemannian manifold $(M,\langle,\rangle)$, we construct a family of paracontact metric structures. We prove that this class of paracontact metric structures is invariant under $\mathcal D$-homothetic deformations, and classify paraSasakian and paracontact $(κ,μ)$-spaces inside this class. We also present a way to build paracontact $(κ,μ)$-spaces from corresponding contact metric structures on $T_1 M$.
We present a way of constructing and deforming diffeomorphisms of manifolds endowed with a Lie group action. This is applied to the study of exotic diffeomorphisms and involutions of spheres and to the equivariant homotopy of Lie groups.
An Engel structure is a maximally non-integrable field of two-planes tangent to a four-manifold. Any two such structures are locally diffeomorphic. We investigate the space of global deformations of canonical Engel structures arising out of contact three-manifolds. The main tool is Cartan's method of prolongation and deprolongation which lets us pass back and forth between certain Engel four-manifolds and contact three-manifolds. Every Engel manifold inherits a natural one-dimensional foliation. Its leaves are the fibers of the map from Engel to contact manifold, when this map exists. The foli…
On a bounded strictly pseudoconvex domain in $\mathbb{C}^n$, $n >1$, the smoothness of the Cheng-Yau solution to Fefferman's complex Monge-Ampère equation up to the boundary is obstructed by a local curvature invariant of the boundary, the CR obstruction density $\mathcal{O}$. While local examples of obstruction flat CR manifolds are plentiful, the only known compact examples are the spherical CR manifolds. We consider the obstruction flatness problem for small deformations of the standard CR 3-sphere. That rigidity holds for the CR sphere was previously known (in all dimensions) for the case …
A spherical conical metric $g$ on a surface $Σ$ is a metric of constant curvature $1$ with finitely many isolated conical singularities. The uniformization problem for such metrics remains largely open when at least one of the cone angles exceeds $2π$. The eigenfunctions of the Friedrichs Laplacian $Δ_g$ with eigenvalue $λ=2$ play a special role in this problem, as they represent local obstructions to deformations of the metric $g$ in the class of spherical conical metrics. In the present paper we apply the theory of multivalued harmonic maps to spheres to the question of existence of such eig…
We study infinitesimal conformal deformations of a triangulated surface in Euclidean space and investigate the change in its extrinsic geometry. A deformation of vertices is conformal if it preserves length cross-ratios. On one hand, conformal deformations generalize deformations preserving edge lengths. On the other hand, there is a one-to-one correspondence between infinitesimal conformal deformations in space and infinitesimal isometric deformations of the stereographic image on the sphere. The space of infinitesimal conformal deformations can be parametrized in terms of the change in dihed…
We investigate octonion product deformations coming from the parallelizable torsion of the 7-sphere $S^7$, obtaining a family of geometries from solutions of the Lagrangian formalism movement equations. This can be achieved by analyzing the spontaneous compactification $M_4\times S^7$, where $M_4$ is a Lorentzian $4$-dimensional manifold. Besides the usual Riemannian geometry and two others proposed by Cartan and Schouten, solutions in geometries with torsion and more general seven-dimensional spaces are obtained. Such formalism may by subsequently derived over the 7-sphere $S^7$, locally give…
