Surfaces containing two circles through each point and Pythagorean 6-tuples

Abstract

We study analytic surfaces in 3-dimensional Euclidean space containing two circular arcs through each point. The problem of finding such surfaces traces back to the works of Darboux from XIXth century. We reduce finding all such surfaces to the algebraic problem of finding all Pythagorean 6-tuples of polynomials. The reduction is based on the Schicho parametrization of surfaces containing two conics through each point and a new approach using quaternionic rational parametrization.