Pseudo-spherical Surfaces of Low Differentiability

Abstract

We continue our investigations into Toda's algorithm [14,3]; a Weierstrass-type representation of Gauss curvature $K=-1$ surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$. We show that $C^0$ input potentials correspond in an appealing way to a special new class of surfaces, with $K=-1$, which we call $C^{1M}$. These are surfaces which may not be $C^2$, but whose mixed second partials are continuous and equal. We also extend several results of Hartman-Wintner [5] concerning special coordinate changes which increase differentiability of immersions of $K=-1$ surfaces. We prove a $C^{1M}$ version of Hilbert's Theorem.