Extremal Surfaces of Mixed Type in Minkowski Space Rn+1

  • Chaohao Gu
Chapter
Part of the Progress in Nonlinear Differential Equations and Their Applications book series (PNLDE, volume 4)

Abstract

A connected 2-dimensional submanifold in Minkowski space is called a surface of mixed type if it contains a space-like part and a time-like part simultaneously. In the present paper we consider the extremal surfaces of mixed type in Minkowski space R n+1.

Suppose that the surface is C 3 and the gradient of the square of the area density does not vanish on the light-like points of the surface, then we obtain the general explicit expression of the surface and prove that
  1. (a)

    The time-like part and space-like part are separated by a null-curve.

     
  2. (b)

    The surface is analytic not only on the space-like part but also in some mixed region.

     
  3. (c)

    There is an explicit algorithm for the construction of all these extremal surfaces of mixed type globally, starting from given analytic curves in R n.

     

The same results for 3-dimensional Minkowski space were obtained earlier [G2], [G3].

Keywords

Mixed Type Minkowski Space Curvature Vector Real Analytic Function Extremal Surface 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1990

Authors and Affiliations

  • Chaohao Gu
    • 1
    • 2
  1. 1.University of Science and TechnologyHefei AnhuiChina
  2. 2.Inst. of MathFudan UniversityShanghaiChina

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