Asymptotics for minimizers of a Donaldson functional and mean curvature 1-immersions of surfaces into hyperbolic 3-manifolds

Abstract

It has been shown in by Huang-Lucia-Tarantello [17] that, for given $|c|<1$, the moduli space of constant mean curvature (CMC) $c$-immersions of a closed orientable surface of genus $\mathfrak{g}\ge 2$ into a hyperbolic $3$-manifold can be parametrized by elements of the tangent bundle of the corresponding Teichmüller space. This is attained by showing the unique solvability of the Gauss-Codazzi equations governing (CMC) c-immersions. The corresponding unique solution is identified as the global minimum (and only critical point) of the Donaldson functional $D_t$ (introduced in [11]) given in (1.3) with $t=1-c^2$. When $|c|\ge 1$ (i.e. $t\le 0$), so far nothing is known about the existence of analogous (CMC) c-immersions. Indeed, for $t\le 0$ the functional $D_t$ may no longer be bounded from below and evident non-existence situations do occur. Already the case $|c|=1$ (i.e. $t=0$) appears rather involved and actually (CMC) 1-immersions can be attained only as "limits" of (CMC) c-immersions for $|c|⟶1^{-}$. To handle this situation, here we analyse the asymptotic behaviour of minimizers of $D_t$ as $t⟶0^{+}$. We use an accurate asymptotic analysis to describe possible blow-up phenomena. In this way, we can relate the existence of (CMC) 1-immersions to the Kodaira map. As a consequence, we obtain the first existence and uniqueness result about (CMC) 1-immersions of surfaces of genus $\mathfrak{g}=2$ into hyperbolic 3-manifolds.