1. The Willmore problem for surfaces with symmetry
- Author
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Kusner, Rob, Lü, Ying, and Wang, Peng
- Subjects
Mathematics - Differential Geometry - Abstract
The Willmore Problem seeks the surface in $\mathbb{S}^3\subset\mathbb{R}^4$ of a given topological type minimizing the squared-mean-curvature energy $W = \int |H_{\mathbb{R}^4}|^2 = area + \int |H_{\mathbb{S}^3}|^2$. The longstanding Willmore Conjecture that the Clifford torus minimizes $W$ among genus-$1$ surfaces is now a theorem of Marques and Neves [22], but the general conjecture \cite[12] that Lawson's [18] minimal surface $\xi_{g,1}\subset\mathbb{S}^3$ minimizes $W$ among surfaces of genus $g>1$ remains open. Here we prove this conjecture under the additional assumption that the competitor surfaces $M\subset\mathbb{S}^3$ share the ambient symmetries $\widehat{G}_{g,1}$ of $\xi_{g,1}$. In fact, we show each Lawson surface $\xi_{m,k}$ satisfies the analogous $W$-minimizing property under a smaller symmetry group $\widetilde{G}_{m,k}=\widehat{G}_{m,k}\cap SO(4)$. We also describe a genus 2 example where known methods do not ensure the existence of a $W$-minimizer among surfaces with its symmetry., Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. This supersedes our previous paper arXiv:2103.09432
- Published
- 2024