After Galvez, Martinez and Milan discovered a (Weierstrass-type) holomorphic representation formula for flat surfaces in hyperbolic 3-space, the first, third and fourth authors here gave a framework for complete flat fronts with singularities in H^3. In the present work we broaden the notion of completeness to weak completeness, and of front to p-front. As a front is a p-front and completeness implies weak completeness, the new framework and results here apply to a more general class of flat surfaces.
This more general class contains the caustics of flat fronts -- shown also to be flat by Roitman (who gave a holomorphic representation formula for them) -- which are an important class of surfaces and are generally not complete but only weakly complete. Furthermore, although flat fronts have globally defined normals, caustics might not, making them flat fronts only locally, and hence only p-fronts. Using the new framework, we obtain characterizations for caustics.
We give a short introduction to discrete flat fronts in hyperbolic space and prove that any discrete flat front in the mixed area sense admits a Weierstrass representation.
We propose a Lie geometric point of view on flat fronts in hyperbolic space as special omega-surfaces and discuss the Lie geometric deformation of flat fronts.
We shall investigate flat surfaces in hyperbolic 3-space with admissible singularities, called `flat fronts'. An Osserman-type inequality for complete flat fronts is shown. When equality holds in this inequality, we show that all the ends are embedded. Moreover, we shall give new examples for which equality holds.
We compute the differential geometric invariants of cuspidal edges on flat surfaces in hyperbolic $3$-space and in de Sitter space. Several dualities of invariants are pointed out.
We define discrete flat surfaces in hyperbolic 3-space from the perspective of discrete integrable systems and prove properties that justify the definition. We show how these surfaces correspond to previously defined discrete constant mean curvature 1 surfaces in hyperbolic 3-space, and we also describe discrete focal surfaces (discrete caustics) that can be used to define singularities on discrete flat surfaces. We also examine discrete linear Weingarten surfaces of Bryant type in hyperbolic 3-space, and consider an example of a discrete flat surface related to the Airy equation that exhibits…
In this paper, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of regular ends of flat surfaces in the hyperbolic 3-space H^3. Galvez, Martinez and Milan showed that when the singular set does not accumulate at an end, the end is asymptotic to a rotationally symmetric flat surface. As a refinement of their result, we show that the asymptotic order (called "pitch" p) of the end determines the limiting shape, even when the singular set does accumulate at the end. If the singular set is bounded away from the end, we have -1<p<=0. If the singular set accumulates at the end, the pitch p is a positive ration…
It is well-known that the unit cotangent bundle of any Riemannian manifold has a canonical contact structure. A surface in a Riemannian 3-manifold is called a (wave) front if it is the projection of a Legendrian immersion into the unit cotangent bundle. We shall give easily-computable criteria for a singular point on a front to be a cuspidal edge or a swallowtail. Using this, we shall prove that generically flat fronts in the hyperbolic 3-space admit only cuspidal edges and swallowtails. Moreover, we will show that every complete flat front (which is not rotationally symmetric) has associated …
We investigate surfaces with constant harmonic-mean curvature one (HMC-1 surfaces) in hyperbolic three-space. We allow them to have certain kinds of singularities, and discuss some global properties. As well as flat surfaces and surfaces with constant mean curvature one (CMC-1 surfaces), HMC-1 surfaces belong to a certain class of Weingarten surfaces. From the viewpoint of parallel surfaces, CMC-1 surfaces and HMC-1 surfaces are representative among this class.
A geometric construction is provided that associates to a given flat front in $\mathbb{H}^3$ a pair of minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ which are related by a Ribaucour transformation. This construction is generalized associating to a given frontal in $\mathbb{H}^3$ , a pair of frontals in $\mathbb{R}^3$ that are envelopes of a smooth congruence of spheres. The theory of Ribaucour transformations for minimal surfaces is reformulated in terms of a complex Riccati ordinary differential equation for a holomorphic function. This enables one to simplify and extend the classical theory, that in pr…
We give an effective estimate for the totally ramified value number of the hyperbolic Gauss maps of complete flat fronts in the hyperbolic three-space. As a corollary, we give the upper bound of the number of exceptional values of them for some topological cases. Moreover, we obtain some new examples for this class.
We prove several topological properties of linear Weingarten surfaces of Bryant type, as wave fronts in hyperbolic 3-space. For example, we show the orientability of such surfaces, and also co-orientability when they are not flat. Moreover, we show an explicit formula of the non-holomorphic hyperbolic Gauss map via another hyperbolic Gauss map which is holomorphic. Using this, we show the orientability and co-orientability of CMC-1 faces (i.e., constant mean curvature one surfaces with admissible singular points) in de Sitter 3-space. (CMC-1 faces might not be wave fronts in general, but belon…
We prove generalizations of the isoperimetric inequality for both spherical and hyperbolic wave fronts (i.e. piecewise smooth curves which may have cusps). We then discuss "bicycle curves" using the generalized isoperimetric inequalities. The euclidean model of a bicycle is a unit segment AB that can move so that it remains tangent to the trajectory of point A (the rear wheel is fixed on the bicycle frame). We extend this definition to a general Riemannian manifold, and concern ourselves in particular with bicycle curves in the hyperbolic plane H^2 and on the sphere S^2. We prove results along…
We provide an effective ramification theorem for the ratio of canonical forms of a weakly complete flat front in the hyperbolic three-space. Moreover we give the two applications of this theorem, the first one is to show an analogue of the Ahlfors islands theorem for it and the second one is to give a simple proof of the classification of complete nonsingular flat surfaces in the hyperbolic three-space.
We derive a permutability theorem for the Christoffel, Goursat and Darboux transformations of isothermic surfaces. As a consequence we obtain a simple proof of a relation between Darboux pairs of minimal surfaces in Euclidean space, curved flats in the 2-sphere and flat fronts in hyperbolic space.
We construct a complete, bounded Legendrian immersion in C^3. As direct applications of it, we show the first examples of a weakly complete bounded flat front in hyperbolic 3-space, a weakly complete bounded flat front in de Sitter 3-space, and a weakly complete bounded improper affine front in R^3.
In a joint work with Saji, the second and the third authors gave an intrinsic formulation of wave fronts and proved a realization theorem of wave fronts in space forms. As an application, we show that the following four objects are essentially same; * conformally flat n-manifolds (n>=3) with admissible singular points (i.e. admissible GCF-manifolds), * frontals as hypersurfaces in the lightcone Q^{n+1}_+, * frontals as hypersurfaces in the hyperbolic space H^{n+1}, * sapacelike frontals as hypersurfaces in the de Sitter space S^{n+1}_1. Recently, the duality of conformally flat Riemannian mani…
We describe the space of isometric immersions from the Lorentz plane $L^2$ into the 3-dimensional anti-de Sitter space, and solve several open problems of this context raised by M. Dajczer and K. Nomizu in 1981. We also obtain from the above result a description of the space of Lorentzian flat tori isometrically immersed in the anti de Sitter space in terms of pairs of closed curves with wave front singularities in the hyperbolic plane satisfying some compatibility conditions.
We give the best possible upper bound for the number of exceptional values of the Lagrangian Gauss map of complete improper affine fronts in the affine three-space. We also obtain the sharp estimate for weakly complete case. As an application of this result, we provide a new and simple proof of the parametric affine Bernstein problem for improper affine spheres. Moreover we get the same estimate for the ratio of canonical forms of weakly complete flat fronts in hyperbolic three-space.
We study a simple model of bicycle motion: a segment of fixed length in multi-dimensional Euclidean space, moving so that the velocity of the rear end is always aligned with the segment. If the front track is prescribed, the trajectory of the rear wheel is uniquely determined via a certain first order differential equation -- the bicycle equation. The same model, in dimension two, describes another mechanical device, the hatchet planimeter. Here is a sampler of our results. We express the linearized flow of the bicycle equation in terms of the geometry of the rear track; in dimension three, fo…
