Marginally trapped surfaces in Minkowski 4-space invariant under a rotation subgroup of the Lorentz group

Abstract

A local classification of spacelike surfaces in Minkowski 4-space, which are invariant under spacelike rotations, and with mean curvature vector either vanishing or lightlike, is obtained. Furthermore, the existence of such surfaces with prescribed Gaussian curvature is shown. A procedure is presented to glue several of these surfaces with intermediate parts where the mean curvature vector field vanishes. In particular, a local description of marginally trapped surfaces invariant under spacelike rotations is exhibited.