Singularities of Maximal Surfaces

Abstract

We show that the singularities of spacelike maximal surfaces in Lorentz-Minkowski 3-space generically consist of cuspidal edges, swallowtails and cuspidal cross caps. The same result holds for spacelike mean curvature one surfaces in de Sitter 3-space. To prove these, we shall give a simple criterion for a given singular point on a surface to be a cuspidal cross cap.