Willmore's conjecture for tori in the three-sphere

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Let W(Σ)=∫Σ(1+H2),dμ\mathcal W(\Sigma)=\int_{\Sigma}(1+H^2)\\,d\mu denote the Willmore energy of a compact surface Σ⊂S3\Sigma\subset S^3, where HH is its mean curvature. Willmore's conjecture. Every compact surface Σ⊂S3\Sigma\subset S^3 of genus one must satisfy

W(Σ)≥2π2.\mathcal W(\Sigma)\geq 2\pi^2.

This is the stereographic-projection-equivalent formulation of Willmore's conjecture and was proved by Marques and Neves; equality occurs only for the Clifford torus, up to conformal transformations and the corresponding rigidity described in the paper.

References

Primary source

Fernando C. Marques and André Neves, “The Willmore conjecture”, arXiv:1409.7664 (2014).

Additional references

2 papers in this index state this conjecture (2014). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:1409.7537.

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