Isothermic and S-Willmore Surfaces as Solutions to Blaschke's Problem

Abstract

We consider the generalization of classical Blaschke's Problem to higher codimension case, characterizing Darboux pair of isothermic surfaces and dual S-Willmore surfaces as the only non-trivial surface pairs that envelop a 2-sphere congruence and conformally correspond to each other. When the sphere congruence is the mean curvature spheres of one envelop surface, it must be a cmc-1 surface in hyperbolic 3-space, or a S-Willmore surface. A study of conformally immersed surface pairs is indicated with discussion on the geometric meaning of new invariants.