Isothermic tori with one family of planar curvature lines and area constrained hyperbolic elastica

TL;DR

This paper classifies a special family of isothermic tori with planar curvature lines, providing explicit formulas and linking them to hyperbolic elastica, with implications for constructing new examples of Bonnet pairs.

Contribution

It offers a complete classification of isothermic tori with one family of planar curvature lines and explicit theta function formulas, extending Darboux's classical work.

Findings

Explicit theta function formulas for planar curvature line curves

Identification of area constrained hyperbolic elastica as curvature lines

Construction of the first analytic compact Bonnet pairs

Abstract

In 1883, Darboux gave a local classification of isothermic surfaces with one family of planar curvature lines using complex analytic methods. His choice of real reduction cannot contain tori. We classify isothermic tori with one family of planar curvature lines. They are found in the second real reduction of Darboux's description. We give explicit theta function formulas for the family of plane curves. These curves are particular area constrained hyperbolic elastica. With a Euclidean gauge, the Euler--Lagrange equation is lower order than expected. In our companion paper (arXiv:2110.06335) we use such isothermic tori to construct the first examples of compact Bonnet pairs: two isometric tori related by a mean curvature preserving isometry. They are also the first pair of isometric compact immersions that are analytic. Additionally, we study the finite dimensional moduli space characterizing when the second family of curvature lines is spherical. Isothermic tori with planar and spherical curvature lines are natural generalizations of Wente constant mean curvature tori, discovered in 1986. Wente tori are recovered in a limit case of our formulas.