The Moebius geometry of Wintgen ideal submanifolds

Abstract

Wintgen ideal submanifolds in space forms are those ones attaining equality pointwise in the so-called DDVV inequality which relates the scalar curvature, the mean curvature and the scalar normal curvature. They are Moebius invariant objects. The mean curvature sphere defines a conformal Gauss map into a Grassmann manifold. We show that any Wintgen ideal submanifold has a Riemannian submersion structure over a Riemann surface with the fibers being round spheres. Then the conformal Gauss map is shown to be a super-conformal and harmonic map from the underlying Riemann surface. Some of our previous results are surveyed in the final part.