Chen–Gackstatter surface

From HandWiki
The first nine Chen–Gackstatter surfaces.

In differential geometry, the Chen–Gackstatter surface family (or the Chen–Gackstatter–Thayer surface family) is a family of minimal surfaces that generalize the Enneper surface by adding handles, giving it nonzero topological genus.[1][2]

They are not embedded, and have Enneper-like ends. The members Mij of the family are indexed by the number of extra handles i and the winding number of the Enneper end; the total genus is ij and the total Gaussian curvature is 4π(i+1)j.[3] It has been shown that M11 is the only genus one orientable complete minimal surface of total curvature 8π.[4]

It has been conjectured that continuing to add handles to the surfaces will in the limit converge to the Scherk's second surface (for j = 1) or the saddle tower family for j > 1.[2]

References

  • The Chen–Gackstatter Thayer Surfaces at the Scientific Graphics Project [1]
  • Chen–Gackstatter Surface in the Minimal Surface Archive [2]
  • Xah Lee's page on Chen–Gackstatter [3]