Related papers: Weierstrass-Kenmotsu representation of Willmore su…
This paper aims to provide a description of totally isotropic Willmore two-spheres and their adjoint transforms. We first recall the isotropic harmonic maps which are introduced by H\'elein, Xia-Shen and Ma for the study of Willmore…
We characterise the maps into the space of $2$-spheres in $S^n$ that are the conformal Gauss maps of conformal immersions of a surface. In particular, we give an invariant formulation and efficient proof of a characterisation, due to…
In this paper we deal with the global properties of Willmore surfaces in spheres via the harmonic conformal Gauss map using loop groups. We first derive a global description of those harmonic maps which can be realized as conformal Gauss…
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…
In this note we demonstrate how the analogy between the harmonic Gauss map of a constant mean curvature surface and the harmonic conformal Gauss map of a Willmore surface can be used to obtain results on Willmore surfaces.
The paper builds a DPW approach of Willmore surfaces via conformal Gauss maps. As applications, we provide descriptions of minimal surfaces in $\mathbb R^{n+2}$, isotropic surfaces in $S^4$ and homogeneous Willmore tori via the loop group…
In this note we discuss Gauss maps for M\"obius surfaces in the $n$-sphere, and their applications in the study of Willmore surfaces. One such ``Gauss map'', naturally associated to a Willmore surface that has a dual Willmore surface, is…
In this paper we provide a systematic discussion of how to incorporate orientation preserving symmetries into the treatment of Willmore surfaces via the loop group method. In this context we first develop a general treatment of Willmore…
In this paper we make a detailed and self-contained study of the conformalGauss map. Then, starting from the seminal work of R. Bryant and the notion of conformal Gauss map, we recover many fundamental properties of Willmore surfaces. We…
This is the first comprehensive introduction to the authors' recent attempts toward a better understanding of the global concepts behind spinor representations of surfaces in 3-space. The important new aspect is a quaternionic-valued…
We solve the analogue of Bj\"orling's problem for Willmore surfaces via a harmonic map representation. For the umbilic-free case the problem and solution are as follows: given a real analytic curve $y_0$ in $S^3$, together with the…
We describe some general constructions on a real smooth projective 4-quadric which provide analogues of the Willmore functional and conformal Gauss map in both Lie sphere and projective differential geometry. Extrema of these functionals…
In the past decades, the authors made some systematic research on global and local properties of Willmore surfaces in terms of the DPW method. In this note we give a survey, mainly including the basic framework of the DPW method for the…
The immersion of the string world sheet, regarded as a Riemann surface, in $R^3$ and $R^4$ is described by the generalized Gauss map. When the Gauss map is harmonic or equivalently for surfaces of constant mean curvature, we obtain…
We study the umbilic points of Willmore surfaces in codimension 1 from the viewpoint of the conformal Gauss map. We first study the local behaviour of the conformal Gauss map near umbilic curves and prove that they are geodesics up to a…
Some classification results for closed surfaces in Berger spheres are presented. On the one hand, a Willmore functional for isometrically immersed surfaces into an homogeneous space $\mathbb{E}^{3}(\kappa,\tau)$ with isometry group of…
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…
Willmore surfaces are the extremals of the Willmore functional (possibly under a constraint on the conformal structure). With the characterization of Willmore surfaces by the (possibly perturbed) harmonicity of the mean curvature sphere…
This paper resolves a long-standing open problem by providing a classification of Willmore $2$-spheres in $S^n$. We show that any such $2$-sphere is either totally isotropic--originating from the projection of a special twistor curve in the…
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…