Isometric immersions into three-dimensional unimodular metric Lie groups

Abstract

We study isometric immersions of surfaces into simply connected 3-dimensional unimodular Lie groups endowed with either Riemannian or Lorentzian left-invariant metrics, assuming that Milnor's operator is diagonalizable in the Lorentzian case. We provide global models in coordinates for all these metric Lie groups that depend analytically on the structure constants and establish some fundamental theorems characterizing such immersions. In this sense, we study up to what extent we can recover the immersion from (a) the tangent projections of the natural left-invariant ambient frame, (b) the left-invariant Gauss map, and (c) the shape operator. As an application, we prove that an isometric immersion is determined by its left-invariant Gauss map up to certain well controlled angular companions. We also we classify totally geodesic surfaces and introduce four Lorentzian analogues of the Daniel correspondence within two families of Lorentzian homogeneous 3-manifolds with 4-dimensional isometry group. We also classify isometric immersions in $\mathbb{R}^3$ or $\mathbb{S}^3$ whose left-invariant Gauss maps differ by a direct isometry of $\mathbb{S}^2$. Finally, we show that Daniel's is the furthest extension of the classical Lawson correspondence for constant mean curvature surfaces within Riemannian unimodular metric Lie groups.