Differential geometry of immersed surfaces in three-dimensional normed spaces

Abstract

In this paper we study curvature types of immersed surfaces in three-dimensional (normed or) Minkowski spaces. By endowing the surface with a normal vector field, which is a transversal vector field given by the ambient Birkhoff orthogonality, we get an analogue of the Gauss map. Then we can define concepts of principal, Gaussian, and mean curvatures in terms of the eigenvalues of the differential of this map. Considering planar sections containing the normal field, we also define normal curvatures at each point of the surface, and with respect to each tangent direction. We investigate the relations between these curvature types. Further on we prove that, under an additional hypothesis, a compact, connected surface without boundary whose Minkowski Gaussian curvature is constant must be a Minkowski sphere. Since existing literature on the subject of our paper is widely scattered, in the introductory part also a survey of related results is given.