Application of Chern-Simons gauge theory to the enclosed volume of constant mean curvature surfaces in the 3-sphere

Abstract

Building on Hitchin's work of the Wess-Zumino-Witten term for harmonic maps into Lie groups, we derive a formula for the enclosed volume of a compact CMC surface $f$ in ${\mathbb{S}}^3$ in terms of a holonomy on the Chern-Simons bundle and the Willmore functional. By construction the enclosed volume only depends on the gauge classes of the associated family of flat connections of $f$. In this paper we show in various examples the effectiveness of this formula, in particular for surfaces of genus $g\ge 2.$