A Spectral Theory for Simply Periodic

Solutions of the Sinh Gordon Equation

Sebastian Klein
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Lecture Notes in Mathematics 2229

Sebastian Klein

A Spectral Theory
for Simply
Periodic Solutions
of the Sinh-
Gordon Equation
Lecture Notes in Mathematics 2229
Editors-in-Chief:
Jean-Michel Morel, Cachan
Bernard Teissier, Paris

Advisory Board:
Michel Brion, Grenoble
Camillo De Lellis, Princeton
Alessio Figalli, Zurich
Davar Khoshnevisan, Salt Lake City
Ioannis Kontoyiannis, Athens
Gábor Lugosi, Barcelona
Mark Podolskij, Aarhus
Sylvia Serfaty, New York
Anna Wienhard, Heidelberg
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/304
Sebastian Klein

A Spectral Theory
for Simply Periodic Solutions
of the Sinh-Gordon Equation

123
Sebastian Klein
School of Business Informatics &
Mathematics
University of Mannheim
Mannheim, Germany

ISSN 0075-8434 ISSN 1617-9692 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Mathematics
ISBN 978-3-030-01275-5 ISBN 978-3-030-01276-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01276-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018961014

Mathematics Subject Classification (2010): Primary: 37K10, 53A10, 58E12; Secondary: 35P05, 35R30,
37K15, 37K25, 40A05, 40A10, 40A20, 42B05, 46B45, 46C05, 46E15, 46E35

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

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Preface

This book on a spectral theory for simply periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon
equation is the result of my habilitation project at the University of Mannheim.
I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to Professor Martin U. Schmidt,
who has advised me during the creation of this work. His steady support and help
has been invaluable to me. I have learned a lot from him. I would also like to thank
Professor C. Hertling for the introductory seminary on algebraic geometry and for
further advice, Dr. Markus Knopf for discussions on spectral theory and especially
on Darboux coordinates, Dr. Alexander Klauer for advice on functional analysis,
and Dr. Tobias Simon and Dr. Eva Lübcke for many mathematical discussions.

Mannheim, Germany Sebastian Klein

August 2018

v
Contents

Part I Spectral Data

1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2 Minimal Immersions into the 3-Sphere and the Sinh-Gordon
Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 Spectral Data for Simply Periodic Solutions of the Sinh-Gordon
Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Part II The Asymptotic Behavior of the Spectral Data

4 The Vacuum Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5 The Basic Asymptotic of the Monodromy . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6 Basic Behavior of the Spectral Data .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
7 The Fourier Asymptotic of the Monodromy .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
8 The Consequences of the Fourier Asymptotic
for the Spectral Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Part III The Inverse Problem for the Monodromy

9 Asymptotic Spaces of Holomorphic Functions . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
10 Interpolating Holomorphic Functions.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
11 Final Description of the Asymptotic of the Monodromy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
12 Non-special Divisors and the Inverse Problem
for the Monodromy .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

vii
viii Contents

Part IV The Inverse Problem for Periodic Potentials (Cauchy

Data)
13 Divisors of Finite Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
14 Darboux Coordinates for the Space of Potentials .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
15 The Inverse Problem for Cauchy Data Along the Real Line . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Part V The Jacobi Variety of the Spectral Curve

16 Estimate of Certain Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
17 Asymptotic Behavior of 1-Forms on the Spectral Curve .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
18 Construction of the Jacobi Variety for the Spectral Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
19 The Jacobi Variety and Translations of the Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
20 Asymptotics of Spectral Data for Potentials on a Horizontal Strip . . . 303
21 Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

A Some Infinite Sums and Products .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

B Index of Notations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

References .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
 Part I
Spectral Data
Chapter 1
Introduction

The Sinh-Gordon Equation and Constant Mean Curvature

Surfaces

The objective of the present work is to study periodic, complex-valued solutions

u : X → C of the 2-dimensional (i.e. X ⊂ C) sinh-Gordon equation

u + sinh(u) = 0 (1.1)

by means of the theory of integrable systems. In particular, we will develop a

spectral theory for periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation. We call such
solutions simply periodic when we wish to emphasize the difference to doubly
periodic solutions (which have two linear independent periods).
We first discuss the importance of the sinh-Gordon equation. One of the most
significant reasons why the sinh-Gordon equation is interesting is that real-valued
solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation arise from minimal surfaces resp. constant
mean curvature surfaces (CMC surfaces) without umbilical points (=zeros of the
Hopf differential) in the 3-dimensional real space forms. More precisely, the
conformal factor of the induced metric yields (in appropriate coordinates and
possibly after scaling) a solution of the sinh-Gordon equation for non-minimal
constant mean curvature surfaces in the Euclidean space R3 , for (minimal or non-
minimal) constant mean curvature surfaces in the 3-sphere S 3 , and for constant
mean curvature surfaces in the hyperbolic 3-space H 3 where the absolute value of
the mean curvature is >1.
For example, as we will describe more explicitly in Chap. 2, for a conformal,
minimal immersion f : X → S 3 there exist conformal parameters z so that the
Hopf differential is “constant”, i.e. equal to E dz2 with some constant E ∈ S 1 .
With respect to such coordinates, the Gauss equation for the conformal metric g =
eu/2 dz dz with the conformal factor u : X → R of f reduces to the sinh-Gordon

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 3

S. Klein, A Spectral Theory for Simply Periodic Solutions of the Sinh-Gordon
Equation, Lecture Notes in Mathematics 2229,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01276-2_1
4 1 Introduction

equation, thus u is a solution of the sinh-Gordon equation. Moreover the Codazzi

equation reduces to 0 = 0. In this setting umbilical points of the surface (i.e. zeros
of its Hopf differential) correspond to coordinate singularities of the solution u.
Therefore studying minimal surfaces or CMC surfaces in the 3-dimensional space
forms means to study solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation. When we exclude
umbilical points of the surface, we get singularity-free solutions of the sinh-Gordon
equation.

Examples and Classifications for Constant Mean Curvature

Surfaces

Simple examples of CMC surfaces are surfaces with parallel second fundamental
form, in R3 these are the planes, spheres and (circular) cylinders (embedded in the
usual way). More interesting examples of CMC surfaces in R3 are the Delaunay
surfaces, a class of immersed CMC surfaces which are topologically cylinders and
which were first considered by Delaunay in [Del]. Alexandrov showed in [Al] that
the only embedded compact CMC surfaces in R3 are the round 2-spheres, and
Hopf showed in [Ho] that the only immersed compact CMC surfaces in R3 of
genus g = 0 (i.e. homeomorphic to the 2-sphere) are again the round 2-spheres;
he in fact conjectured that there are no immersed compact CMC surfaces in R3
besides the round 2-spheres at all. Interest in compact immersed CMC surfaces in
the 3-dimensional space forms soared, however, after Wente showed in 1986 (see
[W]) this conjecture to be false by constructing what is now known as the Wente
tori: a family of compact, immersed CMC surfaces in R3 of genus g = 1. Later,
Kapouleas found compact immersed CMC surfaces in R3 at first for every genus
g ≥ 3 [Kapo-1], and then also for g = 2 [Kapo-2, Kapo-3].
The theorem of Ruh and Vilms [Ru-V] states that a surface immersion into R3
is CMC if and only if its Gauss map (i.e. its unit normal field, regarded as a map
into the 2-sphere) is harmonic.
A celebrated result was the classification of all immersed CMC tori in R3
resp. S 3 by Pinkall and Sterling in [Pi-S] and independently by Hitchin in [Hi].
The classification by Pinkall and Sterling is based on proving that CMC tori can be
described by polynomial Killing fields; a summary of their proof is found in [Hele,
Chapter 9]. Pinkall’s and Sterling’s work was put into a more general context by
Fox and Wang [Fox-W, especially Sections 6 and 13].
While also Pinkall’s and Sterling’s classification can be interpreted in terms
of integrable systems and spectral theory, Hitchin’s classification is based on this
theory in a more explicit way, and is a significant precursor for the methods
employed in the present work. Thus we will discuss the latter classification in
some more detail below. Unlike for CMC tori, there still is no classification or
parameterization of the moduli space of compact immersed CMC surfaces of genus
g ≥ 2.
Partial Differential Equations and Integrable Systems 5

In S 3 there exist embedded compact CMC surfaces of genus g ≥ 1. One such

surface is the Clifford torus { (x1 , x2 , x3 , x4 ) ∈ S 3 | x12 + x22 = x32 + x42 =
2 }. In 1970, Lawson [Law-2] showed that for any embedded CMC torus in S
1 3

there exists a diffeomorphism S → S that maps that torus onto the Clifford
3 3

torus. Moreover he conjectured that any embedded CMC torus in S 3 is in fact

congruent to the Clifford torus (i.e. can be mapped onto the Clifford torus by an
isometry of S 3 ). This conjecture is now known as the Lawson conjecture. After
attracting significant interest over several decades, the conjecture was finally proved
by Brendle [Br] in 2013, by means of very clever and intricate, but ultimately
surprisingly elementary calculations leading to an application of Bony’s strict
maximum principle for degenerate elliptic equations [Bon]. An alternative proof of
the Lawson conjecture based on integrable systems and deformations methods, and
providing more insight into the geometry of the situation, was found by Hauswirth
et al. [Hau-K-S-3, Hau-K-S-4].
A family of compact embedded minimal surfaces in S 3 is comprised by the
Lawson surfaces: they exist for every genus g ≥ 2, have a large (discrete) symmetry
group and were obtained by Lawson [Law-1, Law-3] by applying a reflection
principle to a suitably chosen solution of Plateau’s Problem of finding a minimal
surface with prescribed boundary. The spectral theory for Lawson surfaces and
more generally for Lawson-symmetric surfaces, i.e. for compact CMC surfaces in
S 3 which have the same symmetry group as some Lawson surfaces of the same
genus, has been studied extensively by S. Heller, L. Heller, N. Schmitt et al., see for
example [Hell-1, Hell-2, Hell-H-S, Hell-S].
Among the most important methods used to study the sinh-Gordon equation
is the integrable systems and spectral theory. This is also the most fundamental
approach taken in the present book. For this reason we will discuss these methods
in detail below, and also give references associated to them.
Another important technique, introduced in 1998 by Dorfmeister, Pedit and Wu
[Do-P-W], is called the DPW method (for the initials of the names of its inventors).
It uses loop group methods, in particular the Iwasawa and Birkhoff splittings
for loop groups, to associate to each solution u of the sinh-Gordon equation a
holomorphic 1-form, called the DPW potential of u. The resulting representation of
solutions u is to some extent analogous to the classical Weierstrass representation
of minimal surfaces in R3 .

Partial Differential Equations and Integrable Systems

It turns out that certain partial differential equations, for example the Korteweg-
de Vries (KdV) equation and the non-linear Schrödinger (NLS) equation, but also
the sinh-Gordon equation which is at the focus of interest in the present work, are
each related to an integrable system on an infinite-dimensional (function) space.
This relationship is a very powerful method for the investigation of those partial
6 1 Introduction

differential equations to which it applies, and we will apply this method to the sinh-
Gordon equation throughout this book. Here an integrable system is a dynamical
system which has in some sense “sufficiently many” conserved quantities. For an
overview of integrable systems and the mentioned relationship in general, see for
example [Hi-S-W] or [Du-K-N].
It is an unfortunate fact that there does not yet exist a general theory describing
the integrable systems approach for all partial differential equations to which it
applies in a unified manner. Rather, the relationship between the partial differential
equation and the integrable system has to be developed separately for each
individual equation, by methods which build on similar ideas and in general yield
similar results, but differ in their details and the associated calculations. For this
reason, we will describe the relationship first for the KdV equation, for which it was
first discovered and where it can be described in perhaps its “purest” form, and also
say a few words about the NLS equation, before describing the relationship for the
sinh-Gordon equation.

The Integrable System of the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV)

Equation

The KdV equation is the partial differential equation

ut = −uxxx + 6 u ux (1.2)

in the two real variables t and x. It is named for D. Korteweg and G. de Vries, who
encountered this equation in relation to the modeling of water waves in narrow and
shallow water channels. The relationship of the KdV equation to integrable systems
was discovered by Lax [Lax] when he realized that it can be written as what is now
known as a Lax equation, i.e. in the form

d
L = [B, L] (1.3)
dt
with respect to two other differential operators L and B and where the commutator
[B, L] = B · L − L · B is a multiplication operator. In this situation, the pair (L, B)
d2
is called a Lax pair. Explicitly, for the KdV equation, L = − dx 2 + u is the 1-
3
dimensional Schrödinger operator, and B = −4 dx d
3 + 3u dx + 3 dx u is another
d d

differential operator of third order. Because [B, L] is a multiplication operator,

the Lax equation (1.3) defines a flow on the space of functions in the one variable
x which generates solutions u = u(x, t) of the KdV equation from initial data
u(x, t = 0). Note that if the initial data u(x, t = 0) is periodic in x, then the Lax
operators L and B are also periodic, and hence the generated solution of the KdV
equation will maintain that period.
The Integrable System of the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) Equation 7

One can show easily that in this situation, the eigenvalues of L are preserved
under the flow of L and B (and also under an infinite family of “higher flows”).
If we restrict the dynamical system defined by Eq. (1.3) to a function space that is
chosen such that the spectrum of L under this restriction is a pure discrete point
spectrum, then the points of the spectrum therefore become conserved quantities
of the dynamical system (1.3). We consider one of two typical methods to achieve
this, namely to consider solutions u which are periodic, and then to consider the
quasi-periodic spectrum of L. (The other method would be to consider solutions u
which decrease sufficiently rapidly for x → ±∞, leading for example to soliton
solutions and the inverse scattering method; see for example [Hi-S-W, Chapter 3] or
[No-M-P-Z, Chapter I].) It turns out that at least for the KdV equation, one obtains
by this method a discrete point spectrum for L. Thus the spectrum is defined by the
eigenvalue equation Lψ = λψ, where λ ∈ C and ψ is a quasi-periodic function.
Here each eigenvalue λ is a conserved quantity of the dynamical system (1.3).
The periodic spectrum does not determine u uniquely, however one can define
additional data associated to the quasi-periodic eigenfunctions ψ (which move
under the flows of L and B), so that the spectrum along with these additional data
determine the original solution u of the KdV equation uniquely. Because of this
fact, the dynamical system defined by Eq. (1.3) is regarded as an integrable system.
The spectrum together with the mentioned additional data are called the spectral
data of u.
In relation to the correspondence between the solution u and the spectral data
there are two fundamental problems: first the direct problem to study the spectral
data corresponding to a solution u and to derive properties of the spectral data from
properties of the solution u; and second, the inverse problem to study u by its
spectral data, especially to show that u is determined uniquely by the spectral data
and to reconstruct u from its spectral data.
Note that this approach to the study of periodic solutions u of the KdV equation
depends almost exclusively on the study of the spectrum of the 1-dimensional
Schrödinger operator L with potential u along a period (i.e. only with respect
to the single variable x). The other Lax operator B comes into play only when one
reconstructs the two-dimensional solution u of the KdV equation from its values
along the x-line by applying the flow of B.
An important point of view is that the Lax equation can be interpreted as a zero
curvature condition in the following way: The second order differential operator L
can be rewritten as the 2-dimensional first order differential operator − dx
d
+ u0 01
and then the eigenvalue equation Lψ = λψ takes the form

d
Ψ = Uλ Ψ (1.4)
dx
with the 2-dimensional periodic operator
     
0 1 ψ1 ψ
Uλ := and Ψ = = d .
u−λ 0 ψ2 dx ψ
8 1 Introduction

Moreover there exists another 2-dimensional periodic operator Vλ also depending

on the parameter λ so that the Lax equation dtd
L = [B, L] is equivalent to the
condition
∂Uλ ∂Vλ
− + [Uλ , Vλ ] = 0. (1.5)
∂t ∂x
Equation (1.5) is called a zero curvature condition because it is equivalent to the
condition that the connection d + αλ on the trivial bundle C2 defined by the 1-form
αλ := Uλ dx + Vλ dt is flat. It is also equivalent to the Maurer-Cartan equation for
the linear partial differential equation dFλ = αλ Fλ . Thus for a given solution u of
the KdV equation on R2 there is for every λ ∈ C a unique solution Fλ : R2 →
SL(2, C) of the initial value problem dFλ = αλ Fλ , F (0) = 1. If we consider
a solution u = u(x, t) of the KdV equation (1.2) that is periodic with respect to
x, then the corresponding Fλ are in general not periodic; the extent of their non-
periodicity is measured by the monodromy M(λ) := Fλ (T ), where T > 0 is the
minimal period of u. One can show that some λ ∈ C is a quasi-periodic eigenvalue
of L, where μ ∈ C is the quasi-periodic factor of the corresponding eigenvector, if
and only if μ is an eigenvalue of M(λ). The complex curve

Σ := { (λ, μ) ∈ C2  μ is an eigenvalue of M(λ) }

thereby defined is called the spectral curve of u. In the case of the KdV equation,
Σ is a hyperelliptic curve above C that can be extended at λ = ∞ in a certain
sense (see [Sch, Chapter 2]) by adding a single point to Σ above λ = ∞; this
point then becomes a double point singularity of the curve. The eigenvectors of
M(λ) define a holomorphic line bundle on a suitable partial normalisation of Σ;
the corresponding divisor D on Σ is called the spectral divisor of u. The pair
(Σ, D) is an equivalent description of the spectral data of the solution u. In these
names, the adjective “spectral” refers to the fact that the data are derived from a
specific eigenvalue problem; the term spectral theory in the context of integrable
systems refers to the study of the spectral data in this sense.
The KdV equation is also the example of a partial differential equation with an
integrable system that has been studied most extensively and for which there are
the most diverse publications. Many ideas and techniques that were first developed
for the integrable system of the KdV equation have subsequently been successfully
applied to the integrable system of other partial differential equations. Also for the
present work, results on the KdV integrable system have been inspirational in many
ways, and it is also for this reason that we now mention some important publications
on KdV.
An overview of the investigation of the integrable systems and spectral theory for
the KdV equation can for example be found in [Kapp-P, Chapter III], in [No-M-P-Z,
Chapter II] or in [Ma-2, Chapter 4]. A very accessible introduction to the spectral
theory of the 1-dimensional Schrödinger operator, i.e. the Lax operator L of the
KdV equation, is the book [Pö-T], which however considers only solutions y of
The Integrable System of the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) Equation 9

the Schrödinger equation with the Dirichlet boundary conditions y(0) = y(1) =
0. The book [Pö-T] has been especially influential for the treatment of the sinh-
Gordon equation in the present work, and several of the results in the present work
correspond to analogous theorems in the theory of the KdV equation resp. the 1-
dimensional Schrödinger operator as they are described there; the correspondences
will be pointed out.
The existence of periodic solutions for the KdV equation was first shown by
Marchenko [Ma-1]. Later the moduli space of periodic solutions of the KdV equa-
tion has been characterised by Marchenko and Ostrovskii [Ma-O-1] for real-valued
solutions and by Tkachenko [T] for complex-valued solutions. An angular action
parameterization on the space of smooth periodic solutions has been described by
Kappeler [Kapp]. The best known estimates for the function spaces in which the
KdV dynamics work were found by Kappeler and Topalov [Kapp-T].
A periodic solution u is said to be finite gap or finite zone (for the KdV equation),
or finite type (in the general situation) if its spectral curve has finite geometric genus
and the spectral divisor has finite degree on the partial normalisation of the spectral
curve. Such solutions play a special role because in this case the spectral curve can
be compactified, and the solution can be described by finitely many parameters and
reconstructed from the spectral data by an essentially finite process, providing what
is often called an algebro-geometric correspondence between the spectral data and
the solution. Finite gap solutions have first been considered by Novikov [No], and
a good overview source on them is [Bel, Chapter 3]. Finite gap solutions can be
re-obtained from the spectral data by the explicit Its-Matveev formula which uses
the theta function of the spectral curve, see [I-M-2] (in Russian, with the English
summary [I-M-1]).
It was shown by Marchenko that the finite gap solutions of the KdV equation are
dense in the space of all periodic solutions; a simplified and improved version of
the proof was given by Marchenko and Ostrovskii [Ma-O-2] (in Russian, with an
English translation [Ma-O-3] and an Erratum [Ma-O-4]). This result is extremely
important because it permits to transfer certain results that have been proven for
finite gap solutions to general periodic solutions by a limit argument.
On the other hand, when one wishes to prove results about general periodic KdV
solutions directly, i.e. without using the finite gap theory, one faces the problem
that the spectral curve of such a solution is non-compact and generally has infinite
geometric genus, moreover the spectral divisor generally has infinite degree. To
handle this situation, one best considers the spectral data as members of suitably
chosen Banach spaces. The corresponding estimates are obtained by asymptotic
methods, i.e. by estimating the difference between the spectral data for a given
solution u and the spectral data of the “vacuum solution” u = 0. In this manner,
the spectral theory for KdV was investigated by McKean and van Moerbeke in
[McK-M]; this work was later extended by McKean and Trubowitz to include
also the study of the Jacobi variety of the spectral curve in [McK-T]. Related
estimates for the solutions in terms of the gap lengths were given by Korotyaev
10 1 Introduction

[Ko-1]. Kargaev/Korotyaev solved the inverse problem for periodic KdV solutions,
i.e. the reconstruction of the solution from its spectral data, in [Kar-Ko-1] (with
an Erratum [Kar-Ko-2]) and [Ko-2]. Another solution of the inverse problem was
given by Müller et al. in [Mü-S-S] by generalizing the Its-Matveev formula to theta
functions for complex curves of infinite geometric genus; using their method they
also construct some new infinite gap solutions of the KdV equation.
The spectral theory for an n-dimensional generalisation of the 1-dimensional
Schrödinger operator that occurs as the Lax operator for the KdV equation was
developed by Schmidt in [Sch].

The Integrable System of the Non-linear Schrödinger (NLS)

Equation

Another partial differential equation that has been studied extensively by integrable
systems methods is the (self-focusing) non-linear Schrödinger (NLS) equation

uxx − 2i · ut + 2|u|2 · u = 0 (1.6)

for complex-valued functions u = u(x, t) in two variables. This partial differential

equation first arose in physics; for example it describes stationary light beams in
the plane under non-linear refraction. An inner-mathematical motivation is that it
describes the vortex filament flow of a closed curve in a 3-dimensional space form:
Suppose that γ = γ (x) is a closed curve in one of the 3-dimensional space forms,
let κ resp. τ be the (geodesic) curvature resp. the torsion of γ , and let B be the
binormal field of γ . We then let γ flow in time t by the vortex filament flow
(binormal flow), i.e. according to the differential equation ∂γ
∂t = κ · B. This flow
conserves the closedness and the length of the curve γ . In this setting, Hasimoto
[Has] realized that the so-called Hasimoto curvature or complex curvature
  x 
u(x, t) = κ(x, t) · exp i τ (ξ, t) dξ
0

is a solution of the NLS equation (1.6). It should be noted that although the solution
u of the NLS equation corresponding to the vortex filament flow of a closed curve
is always quasi-periodic in x, not every quasi-periodic or even periodic solution u
of the NLS equation gives rise to the vortex filament flow of a closed curve in a
3-dimensional space form. This is the case only if u satisfies an additional closing
condition which determines two real degrees of freedom.
The Integrable System of the Sinh-Gordon Equation 11

Like the KdV equation, also the NLS equation (1.6) can be written as a Lax
equation (1.3). In this case however, the Lax operators L and B are (2 × 2)-matrix
valued:
   
−i 0 d 0 u
L= + and
0 i dx −u 0
     
−i 0 d2 0 u d 1 −i|u|2 ux
B= + + .
0 i dx 2 −u 0 dx 2 −ux i|u|2

These Lax operators define an integrable system that is associated to the NLS
equation in an analogous way as was described for the KdV equation above. Also the
representation of the Lax equation as a zero-curvature condition and the construction
of the spectral data carries over to the NLS equation. Like for KdV, also the NLS
spectral curve is at first a hyperelliptic curve above C and can (again in the sense
of [Sch, Chapter 2]) be extended at λ = ∞. The most salient difference between
the spectral data for KdV and the spectral data for NLS is that whereas a KdV
spectral curve has a single point above λ = ∞ which is a double point singularity,
a NLS spectral curve has two points above λ = ∞ and these are regular points. An
overview of the integrable systems theory of NLS can be found in [Bel, Chapter 4].
Grinevich and Schmidt [Gri-S-1, Gri-S-2] discussed deformations of NLS
solutions that maintain periodicity. Calini and Ivey [Cal-I-1, Cal-I-2] also used
deformation theory to study the topology of solutions of the vortex filament flow
equation.
Similarly as for the KdV equation, finite gap periodic solutions of the NLS
equation play an important role due to them being determined by finitely many
parameters. In particular, they can be reconstructed explicitly from their spectral
data in terms of theta functions or Baker-Akhiezer functions, see for example
[Cal-I-1, Section 2]. It was shown by Grinevich [Gri] that the finite gap periodic
NLS solutions are dense in the space of all periodic NLS solutions. Moreover he
also showed that the finite gap periodic NLS solutions which satisfy the closing
condition for curves in R3 are dense in the space of all periodic NLS solutions
with this closing condition. Kilian and the author of the present book gave in [Kl-K]
another proof of these two statements via integrable systems theory and asymptotic
methods, and proved the analogous statement for closed curves in the 3-sphere S 3 .
In a forthcoming paper they will also show the denseness statement for closed curves
in the hyperbolic 3-space H 3 .

The Integrable System of the Sinh-Gordon Equation

We now turn our attention to the sinh-Gordon equation (1.1) again. It is the objective
of the present work to study simply periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation
by means of integrable systems theory. When considering the analogy of the
12 1 Introduction

sinh-Gordon equation to the KdV equation or the NLS equation, we note that
unlike the latter two equations, which involve two variables x and t with different
geometric meaning (“space” resp. “time”), the two variables of the sinh-Gordon
equation are essentially equivalent (two “space” coordinates). More importantly, it
turns out that the sinh-Gordon equation can not be written in the form of a Lax
equation (1.3) (even if t is replaced by one of the space coordinates). Therefore the
construction of conserved quantities from periodic eigenvalues of a Lax operator
that has been described above for the KdV equation does not carry over to the sinh-
Gordon equation. However, it is possible to write the sinh-Gordon equation in the
form of a zero-curvature condition; in fact, the sinh-Gordon equation is equivalent
to Eq. (1.5), where the families of operators Uλ , Vλ are defined by
 
1 i uy −eu/2 − λ−1 e−u/2
Uλ := and
4 eu/2 + λ e−u/2 −i uy
 
i −ux eu/2 − λ−1 e−u/2
Vλ := . (1.7)
4 eu/2 − λ e−u/2 ux

Note that Uλ and Vλ are only defined for λ ∈ C∗ rather than for λ ∈ C. By
means of these operators it is possible to define spectral data, i.e. a spectral curve
and a spectral divisor, for simply periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation.
Because the dependency of the operators Uλ and Vλ on λ is more complicated
in this setting, Eq. (1.4) can no longer be interpreted as the eigenvalue equation for
a differential operator L as was the case for the KdV equation, and thus also the
parameter λ can no longer be interpreted as an eigenvalue resp. a spectral value.
Nevertheless, the analogy to the situation for the KdV equation is very close via
the interpretation of the Lax equation as a zero curvature condition, which is the
reason why I take the liberty of applying the term spectral theory also to the study
of periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation by this method; likewise we will
use the adjective “spectral” for the parameter λ and similar objects.
Such zero-curvature representations have been first described for harmonic maps
into Lie groups or symmetric spaces by Pohlmeyer [Poh] and Uhlenbeck [U].
By the theorem of Ruh/Vilms, solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation correspond
to harmonic maps into the 2-sphere; therefore one can obtain the zero-curvature
representation for solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation given above from these
works. McIntosh [McI] has described spectral data from the point of view of
considering harmonic maps from a torus into S 2 , and Burstall et al. [Bu-F-P-P] have
used such methods to construct harmonic maps from a torus into any symmetric
space. It appears that Hitchin [Hi] was the first to apply such a representation and
the associated spectral theory to the study of solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation.
Bobenko [Bo-1, Bo-2, Bo-3] realized that the operators Uλ and Vλ , and thereby
the construction of the spectral data for the sinh-Gordon equation have a geometric
interpretation in terms of the relationship between solutions of the sinh-Gordon
equation and minimal resp. constant mean curvature surfaces. We now describe
the construction of spectral data for simply periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon
The Integrable System of the Sinh-Gordon Equation 13

equation in terms of this geometric interpretation for minimal immersions into the
3-sphere.
Consider a minimal conformal immersion f : X → S 3 without umbilical points
into the 3-sphere, corresponding to a solution u : X → R of the sinh-Gordon
equation. Then the frame F : X → SO(4) of the immersion f induces the so(4)-
valued flat connection form α = F −1 · dF on X, which is the Maurer-Cartan form
of F . The Maurer-Cartan equation for F is equivalent to the equations of Gauss
and Codazzi for the minimal immersion f into S 3 , which are in turn equivalent to
the sinh-Gordon equation for the conformal factor u, i.e. for the map u : X → R
so that the induced Riemannian metric on X is given by g = eu/2 (dx 2 + dy 2 ).
In view of the universal covering group SU(2) × SU(2) of SO(4), the frame F
locally lifts to a map F = (F (1) , F (2) ) into SU(2) × SU(2), and it is clear that
the components F (k) each again satisfy a partial differential equation, namely their
Maurer-Cartan equation. However it was a remarkable observation due to Bobenko,
that the two components F (1) and F (2) are governed by essentially the same
differential equation. More explicitly, if we define αλ := Uλ dx +Vλ dy for λ ∈ C∗
with the operators Uλ and Vλ given by Eq. (1.7), and again consider the extended
frame Fλ defined by the initial value problem dFλ = αλ Fλ , F (0) = 1, then we
have F = (F (1) , F (2) ) = (Fλ=1 , Fλ=−1 ). From F resp. from the extended frame
Fλ , the original minimal immersion f can be reconstructed via the Sym-Bobenko
formula: f = Fλ=−1 · Fλ=1 −1
: N → SU(2) ∼ = S 3 . The two spectral values λ = ±1
which are involved in this reconstruction are called the Sym points of the surface.
If we suppose in this setting that the conformal factor u is periodic, we again
consider the monodromy M(λ) := Fλ (z1 ) · Fλ (z0 )−1 along a period. Then the
hyperelliptic complex curve (possibly with singularities) defined by the eigenvalues
of M(λ)

Σ := { (λ, μ) ∈ C∗ × C  det(M(λ) − μ · 1) = 0 }

will be called the spectral curve of u in the present work (but is called the multiplier
curve by Hitchin, who reserves the term “spectral curve” for a different object, see
below), and the divisor D defining the eigenline bundle of M(λ) on Σ is the
spectral divisor of u. (Σ, D) is called the spectral data for the solution u of
the sinh-Gordon equation. The branch points of Σ are analogous to the periodic
spectrum of the 1-dimensional Schrödinger operator L in the treatment of the
KdV equation via spectral theory described above, and the spectral data (Σ, D)
are analogous to the spectral data for L. It again turns out that the complex curve
Σ is hyperelliptic over C∗ , and in the analogous sense as in [Sch, Chapter 2], Σ
can be compactified by adding one point each above λ = 0 and above λ = ∞;
these additional points then become ordinary double points of the complex curve.
An overview of the integrable systems theory for the sinh-Gordon equation (and
also the closely related sine-Gordon equation) with reality condition is [McK].
Another good overview is contained in [Hau-K-S-1]. An overview for the sine-
Gordon equation is also [Bel, Section 4.2].
14 1 Introduction

Like for other integrable systems, the periodic solutions of finite type play a
special role for the sinh-Gordon integrable system. One reason is that again, they are
described by finitely many parameters, and can be reconstructed from their spectral
data by explicit formulas, for example in terms of theta functions. One particularly
nice reconstruction formula, based on the vector-valued Baker-Akhiezer function on
the spectral curve, was obtained by Knopf in his dissertation [Kn-1] (with summary
[Kn-3]). Note that for the sinh-Gordon integrable system, it has not yet been shown
that the finite type solutions are dense in the space of all periodic solutions; this is
one of the results proven in the present book (Chap. 13).
Another reason why finite type solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation are
important is the remarkable fact that all doubly periodic solutions of the sinh-
Gordon equation are of finite type. This fact was proven by Hitchin [Hi] as an
important step of his classification of the minimal tori in S 3 . In more detail,
his strategy is as follows: Minimal tori in S 3 correspond to doubly periodic
solutions u of the sinh-Gordon equation. The two minimal periods of u induce
two different monodromies and therefore Hitchin obtains at first two different sets
(Σ, D) of spectral data for u. However, because the homotopy group of the torus
is abelian, the two monodromies commute, and therefore the two curves Σ are in
fact the same. This curve Σ is the spectral curve of u in our terminology, but
is called the multiplier curve by Hitchin. He reserves the term “spectral curve”
for the partial normalisation Σ  of Σ (called the middleding in [Kl-L-S-S]) on
which the eigenline bundles of the two monodromies are holomorphic line bundles,
corresponding to free divisors. Hitchin proves that the resulting curve Σ  has finite
geometric genus, and can therefore be compactified as a complex curve by adding a
point each above λ = 0 and λ = ∞. This implies that all doubly periodic solutions
u of the sinh-Gordon equation are of finite type. Using this result, Hitchin can
now classify the doubly periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation by applying
classical results of the theory of compact Riemann surfaces. Finally he obtains a
classification of the minimal tori in S 3 by investigating the “closing condition” that
characterises whether a doubly periodic solution u of the sinh-Gordon equation
corresponds to a (closed) minimal torus in S 3 .
Carberry and Schmidt [Car-S-1, Car-S-2] proved that the spectral curves of CMC
tori in R3 are dense in the space of all smooth finite-gap spectral curves.

Strategy of the Present Work

In the present work, we develop the theory of spectral data for solutions u : X → C
of the sinh-Gordon equation (with X ⊂ C) which have only a single period (are
simply periodic). Note that we include the case of complex-valued u throughout the
work. By a linear transformation of X we may suppose without loss of generality
Strategy of the Present Work 15

that 0 ∈ X holds and that the period of u is 1. Then X is a horizontal strip in C

and

u(z + 1) = u(z) holds for all z ∈ X .

It is possible to construct the spectral data also for bare Cauchy data (u, uy ) for a
solution of the sinh-Gordon equation, here u and uy are periodic functions defined
only on the interval [0, 1], where uy gives the derivative of u in normal direction.
Such Cauchy data correspond to data for the so-called Björling problem, which is
the problem of finding a minimal surface passing through a prescribed curve and
being tangential to a prescribed unit normal field to the curve.
The viewpoint we will take throughout most of the work is that we will study the
relationship between Cauchy data (u, uy ) and the corresponding spectral data.
In this context we are interested in requiring only as weak regularity conditions
for (u, uy ) as possible. There are two reasons: First, we are interested in charac-
terizing precisely which divisors on a spectral curve are spectral divisors of some
Cauchy data (u, uy ); it turns out that every additional differentiability condition
imposed on (u, uy ) reduces the space of divisors by an intricate relationship
between its divisor points. By not imposing more regularity than necessary, we
obtain a description of the space of divisors that is as simple as possible. Second,
while any solution u of the sinh-Gordon equation is infinitely differentiable (in fact
even real analytic, because the sinh-Gordon equation is elliptic) on the interior of
its domain, we are also interested in the behavior of the solution on the boundary
of its domain, where its behavior can be worse. For these reasons we only require
(u, uy ) ∈ W 1,2 ([0, 1]) × L2 ([0, 1]).
The definition of the spectral data (Σ, D) described above carries over to our
situation without difficulty. As spectral curve, we use the complex curve Σ defined
by the eigenvalues of the monodromy (called the multiplier curve by Hitchin), not
the partial desingularization Σ  that Hitchin calls the spectral curve. There are
several reasons for this choice:
The most important reason is that I take the point of view of describing variations
of u within its spectral class by variation of the spectral divisor, not by change of the
curve on which the divisor is defined. Because Hitchin’s partial desingularization Σ 
needs to be chosen dependent on the spectral divisor, spectral divisors on the same
complex curve Σ can induce different partial desingularizations Σ.  Thus using
the partial desingularization would complicate the approach of working on a fixed
curve.
Another reason is that in our setting (with u only simply periodic) Hitchin’s
partial desingularization Σ  would still have infinite geometric genus in general,

so passing from Σ to Σ is not quite as useful in the present situation as it is
for Hitchin. Moreover we note that the existence of a partial desingularization
of Σ which parameterizes the eigenline bundle of the monodromy is a property
of only the sinh-Gordon integrable system (and a few others), as a consequence
of the fact that the monodromy takes values in (2 × 2)-matrices, which causes
Σ to be hyperelliptic. In the spectral theory for other integrable systems, the
16 1 Introduction

monodromies generally take values in larger endomorphism spaces, hence Σ is

no longer hyperelliptic (instead it covers the λ-plane with order ≥ 3), and then
there does not generally exist such a partial desingularization, see Remark 3.4.
However, there is one complication that is caused by using the curve Σ as
spectral curve, instead of its partial desingularization, and that is that we need to
deal with the fact that it is possible for singularities of Σ to occur in the support
of the spectral divisor. In this case, the divisor, in the classical sense, does not
convey enough information to determine the monodromy M(λ) uniquely, which
is of course what we expect of the spectral data. The solution to this problem is to
generalize the concept of a divisor following a concept of Hartshorne [Har-2]. In
this sense, a generalized divisor is a subsheaf D of the sheaf M of meromorphic
functions on Σ which is finitely generated over the sheaf O of holomorphic
functions on Σ. Such a generalized divisor is exactly equivalent to a classical
divisor in the regular points of Σ, but it conveys more information in the singular
points. We will see that this is the proper concept of a divisor to ensure that the
spectral curve Σ along with a generalized divisor D uniquely determines the
monodromy M(λ).
In our setting, the geometric genus of the spectral curve Σ is in general
infinite—the branch points accumulate near λ = ∞ and near λ = 0—so Σ can no
longer be compactified. For this reason, the classical results on compact Riemann
surfaces which played a significant role for the study of solutions of finite type, are
no longer applicable to Σ in the case of infinite type.
We need to replace these standard results with arguments for non-compact
surfaces. To make such arguments feasible, one needs to prescribe the asymptotic
behavior of the spectral curve Σ and the spectral divisor “at its ends”, i.e. near
the points λ = ∞ and λ = 0. The information on the asymptotic behavior of
the spectral data is the replacement for the fact from the finite type theory that (the
partial desingularization of) Σ can be compactified at λ = ∞ and λ = 0. It is for
this reason that asymptotic estimates for the quantities involved in the construction
of the spectral data are a very important, perhaps the most important tool for the
conduction of the present study.
Unfortunately there are only very few results on open Riemann surfaces with
prescribed asymptotics found in the literature. One example would be the book
[Fe-K-T] by Feldman et al. From that book, we will indeed use one of the results
from Chap. 1 that applies to general surfaces that are parabolic in the sense of
Ahlfors [Ah] and Nevanlinna [Ne], i.e. that do not have a Green’s function. However
the results in the later part of that book, which would be very useful to us, depend on
very strict geometric hypotheses for the surface under consideration, see [Fe-K-T,
Section 5], and especially the hypothesis GH2(iv), which requires that the “size of
the handles” tj (comparable to the distance between the pairs of branch points)
β
satisfies tj < ∞ for every β > 0. This condition implies in particular
that the tj are decreasing more rapidly than j −n for every n ≥ 1. Because of
our relatively mild requirements on the differentiability of (u, uy ), the tj do not
decrease sufficiently rapidly by far for our spectral curve Σ, and thus the results
from the latter part of [Fe-K-T] are not applicable in our situation. For this reason
Outline of the Contents of This Book 17

we develop some results analogous to classical results on compact Riemann surfaces

here, as needed.
We mention that Schmidt [Sch] develops the spectral theory for a different inte-
grable system, namely for Lax operators of NLS-like partial differential equations,
and in particular studies the asymptotics and the spectral curves of infinite genus
associated to this integrable system.

Outline of the Contents of This Book

We now give an overview of the results of the work. In Chap. 2 we explicitly

describe the relationship between solutions u of the sinh-Gordon equation, and
minimal immersions f : X → S 3 without umbilical points. This relationship
is of importance because it provides the sl(2, C)-valued flat connection form αλ
(depending on the spectral parameter λ ∈ C∗ ) and thereby the extended frame
Fλ : X → SL(2, C) as the solution of the differential equation dFλ = αλ Fλ . In the
case where u is simply periodic, the monodromy M(λ) ∈ SL(2, C) of the extended
frame along the period is then used in Chap. 3 to construct the spectral data (Σ, D)
for u. Here Σ is the spectral curve, defined by the eigenvalues of M(λ), which
turns out to be a hyperelliptic complex curve, and D is the divisor on Σ defining
the eigenline bundle of M(λ). With respect to D, a difficulty arises in view of the
fact that the spectral curve Σ can be singular: If the support of D contains singular
points, then the classical divisor does not convey enough information at these points
to uniquely determine the monodromy M(λ) anymore, and thus we replace D with
a generalized divisor D in the sense of Hartshorne as explained above. We will see
in Chap. 12 that (Σ, D) uniquely determines the monodromy M(λ) (up to a choice
of sign).
The first main part of the work then is to describe the asymptotic behavior of the
monodromy M(λ) and thereby of the spectral data (Σ, D) near λ = ∞ and near
λ = 0. As explained above, this is the most important instrument for understanding
and controlling the spectral curve in our situation.
We begin in Chap. 4 by calculating the spectral data for the “vacuum solution”
u = 0 of the sinh-Gordon equation. This example is of importance because we
will describe the asymptotic behavior of the various objects near λ → ∞ and
λ → 0 by comparing the objects for any given simply periodic solution u to the
corresponding (explicitly calculated) object for the vacuum solution. In this way,
one can view the spectral data for the vacuum solution as being “typical” for the
spectral data for any simply periodic solution, where the extent of typical-ness is
quantified precisely by the asymptotic estimates of the chapters to come.
For the investigation of the asymptotic behavior of M(λ) and of the spectral
data (Σ, D), we do not consider a solution u of the sinh-Gordon equation
defined on a horizontal strip in C of positive height, but rather periodic Cauchy
data (u, uy ) defined on [0, 1]. For the reasons explained above, we only require
(u, uy ) ∈ W 1,2 ([0, 1]) × L2 ([0, 1]); the condition of periodicity then reduces to
18 1 Introduction

u(0) = u(1). Note that for many of the asymptotic estimates we also admit Cauchy
data without the condition of periodicity. Such “non-periodic potentials” of course
do not correspond to simply-periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation; they
are considered for the sole purpose of deriving the asymptotic behavior of the
extended frame Fλ in Proposition 11.7.
The strategy for obtaining asymptotic estimates for the spectral data is to find
asymptotic estimates for the monodromy M(λ) first and then to derive asymptotic
estimates for the spectral data from them. Similarly as in the case of the 1-
dimensional Schrödinger operator [Pö-T, Chapter 2], one needs to carry out this
process in two stages. The final result on the asymptotic of the spectral data
will permit to solve the inverse problem for the monodromy M(λ), and by this
description of M(λ) also give a final refinement of the asymptotic description of
the monodromy.
This process begins by deriving a relatively mild asymptotic for the monodromy
(called the “basic asymptotic” in Chap. 5), which then yields first information on
the spectral data (Chap. 6): It turns out that the points in the support of the spectral
divisor D can be enumerated by a sequence (λk , μk )k∈Z of points on Σ, where
for |k| large, each (λk , μk ) is in a certain neighborhood of a corresponding point
(λk,0 , μk,0 ) in the divisor of the vacuum; we call these neighborhoods the excluded
domains Uk,δ . Note that the divisor points are (asymptotically) free to move in the
excluded domains, they are not restricted to intervals or curves (as it is the case,
for example, for real-valued solutions of the KdV equation, where these intervals
are called “gaps”); the reason is that we are considering complex-valued, not only
real-valued, solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation.
Similarly, Σ has two branch points in each Uk,δ for |k| large; if they coincide,
then a singularity of Σ occurs. This singularity is an ordinary double point; for |k|
large this is the only type of singularity that can occur, but for small |k|, the spectral
curve Σ can also have singularities of higher order.
These asymptotic assessments can still be refined: By studying the Fourier
transform of the given Cauchy data (u, uy ), in Chap. 7 it is shown that the difference
between the monodromy M(λ) and the monodromy M0 (λ) follows for λ =
λk,0 a law of square-summability, which we call the “Fourier asymptotic” for
the monodromy. From this fact, it follows that the divisor points and the branch
points also follow a square-summability law with respect to the difference to their
counterparts for the vacuum. We show this for the divisor points in Chap. 8, whereas
the corresponding result for the branch points of the spectral curve is postponed to
Chap. 11 to avoid technical difficulties.
Our next objective is to solve the inverse problem for the monodromy: Suppose
that spectral data (Σ, D) are given, where the support of D satisfies the square-
summability law just mentioned, then one would like to reconstruct the monodromy
M(λ) from which these spectral data were induced; in particular, we need to show
that M(λ) is determined uniquely by the spectral data. If we write the SL(2, C)-
valued monodromy M(λ) in the form M(λ) = a(λ) b(λ)
c(λ) d(λ) with holomorphic
∗
functions a, b, c, d : C → C, the spectral divisor directly conveys information on
Outline of the Contents of This Book 19

the zeros of c and on the function values of d (or a) at the zeros of c. The inverse
problem for the monodromy is, in essence, to reconstruct the functions a, b, c, d
from these information and from their known asymptotic behavior.
To facilitate the discussion of this problem, we introduce in Chap. 9 spaces
of holomorphic functions on C∗ or on Σ which have a prescribed asymptotic
behavior near λ = ∞ and/or near λ = 0. The difference between the functions
comprising M(λ) and the corresponding functions of the vacuum will turn out to
be contained in certain of these spaces, and it is for this reason that these spaces are
extremely important in the sequel.
In Chap. 10 we address the mentioned problem of reconstructing a holomorphic
function on C∗ with a prescribed asymptotic behavior from the sequence of
its zeros, or else from a sequence of its values at certain points. The first of
these problems (reconstruction from the zeros) is reminiscent of Hadamard’s
Factorization Theorem (see for example [Co, Theorem XI.3.4, p. 289]), but here we
have a holomorphic function defined on C∗ with two accumulation points of the
sequence of zeros (λ = ∞ and λ = 0), instead of a function on C with the zeros
accumulating only at λ = ∞. For both of the reconstruction problems, we obtain
explicit descriptions of the solution function as an infinite product resp. sum. For
the proof of the corresponding statements, we require several relatively elementary
results on the convergence and estimate of infinite sums and products, these results
are collected in Appendix A.
By applying the explicit product resp. sum formulas from Chap. 10 to the
functions comprising the monodromy M(λ), we can improve the asymptotic
description for M(λ) one final time: in the description of the Fourier asymptotic in
Chap. 7, the points λ = λk,0 played a special role. In Chap. 11 we are now liberated
from this condition and obtain a square-summability law for M − M0 with respect
to arbitrary points e.g. in excluded domains. We also obtain the asymptotic behavior
of the branch points of the spectral curve Σ, and an asymptotic estimate for the
extended frame Fλ itself.
Finally in Chap. 12 we characterize those generalized divisors D on a spectral
curve Σ for which (Σ, D) is the spectral data of a monodromy M(λ). It turns
out that besides the asymptotic behavior that was described before, one needs a
certain compatibility condition (Definition 12.1(1)) and (as is to be expected) that
the divisor D is non-special. Under these circumstances it turns out that (Σ, D)
corresponds to a monodromy M(λ) and that M(λ) is determined uniquely by
(Σ, D) (up to a change of sign of the off-diagonal entries). This concludes the
solution of the inverse problem for the monodromy.
The next question is the inverse problem for the Cauchy data (u, uy ) themselves,
i.e. to reconstruct (u, uy ) from the spectral data (Σ, D). The corresponding
problem has been solved for the potentials of finite type, and it appears natural to
try to apply that result for our infinite type potentials.
For this purpose we show in Chap. 13 (by a fixed point argument) that the set
of finite type divisors is dense in the space of all asymptotic divisors. Moreover, in
Chap. 14 we equip the space of potentials with a symplectic form and construct
Darboux coordinates on this symplectic space, building on previous results by
20 1 Introduction

Knopf [Kn-2]. Using these two results, we are then able to show relatively easily in
Chap. 15 that for the open and dense subset Pott ame of “tame” potentials, the map
Pott ame → Div associating to each tame potential (Cauchy data) the corresponding
spectral divisor is a diffeomorphism onto an open and dense subset of the space of
all asymptotic divisors. This essentially solves the inverse problem for the Cauchy
data (u, uy ).
The final part of the work is concerned with constructing a Jacobi variety and
an Abel map for the spectral curve Σ. For the sake of simplicity, we will here
restrict ourselves to spectral curves Σ which do not have any singularities other
than ordinary double points. Also in this part we admit spectral data corresponding
to complex solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation, it is for this reason that the
individual Jacobi coordinates take values in C (and not only in S 1 , which would be
familiar for example from the Jacobi variety for (real) solutions of the 1-dimensional
Schrödinger operator constructed in [McK-T, Sections 11ff.]).
The construction of the Jacobi variety needs to be prepared with more asymptotic
estimates: In Chap. 16 we prove estimates for certain contour integrals on the
spectral curve Σ, and in Chap. 17 we study holomorphic 1-forms on Σ. In
particular we construct holomorphic 1-forms which have zeros in all the excluded
domains, with the exception of a single one, and find sufficient conditions for such
1-forms to be square-integrable on Σ.
With help of these results we will construct a canonical basis (ωn ) for the space
of holomorphic 1-forms explicitly in Chap. 18. In the case where the spectral curve
Σ has no singularities, the existence of such a basis follows from the general theory
of parabolic (in the sense of Ahlfors/Nevanlinna) Riemann surfaces described for
example in [Fe-K-T, Chapter 1]. However this is not enough for us, not only because
we also need to handle the case where Σ has singularities, but also because we
derive asymptotic estimates for the ωn from their explicit representation which are
stronger than those one can obtain abstractly; we need these stronger estimates in
the construction of the Jacobi variety and the Abel map for Σ.
The work is concluded with two applications of this construction: In Chap. 19
we describe the motions in the Jacobi variety that correspond to translations of the
solution u of the sinh-Gordon equation. Similarly as is known for the finite type
setting, it turns out that these translations correspond to linear motions in the Jacobi
variety. And finally, in Chap. 20 we describe the asymptotic behavior of the spectral
data (Σ, D) for an actual simply periodic solution u : X → C of the sinh-Gordon
equation, given on a horizontal strip of positive height X ⊂ C. We see that in
this case the spectral data satisfy an exponential asymptotic law, much steeper than
the asymptotic behavior of the spectral data for Cauchy data (u, uy ), as is to be
expected, solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation being real analytic in the interior of
their domain.
Chapter 21 outlines a perspective how the present work of research might be
extended to study minimal or CMC surfaces with umbilical points. Such points
correspond to coordinate singularities of the corresponding solution u of the sinh-
Gordon equation. Results on the spectral theory of minimal surfaces with umbilical
points might be used to gain insight into the behavior of compact minimal surfaces
in S 3 , especially those of genus g ≥ 2.
Chapter 2
Minimal Immersions into the 3-Sphere
and the Sinh-Gordon Equation

We begin by describing the relationship between minimal immersions without

umbilical points into the 3-sphere and solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation explic-
itly, especially to obtain the sl(2, C)-valued connection form αλ corresponding to
the zero-curvature representation of the sinh-Gordon equation; from the integration
of αλ we will obtain spectral data for periodic solutions of the sinh-Gordon
equation.
Suppose that f : X → S 3 is a conformal immersion of some Riemann surface
X into the 3-sphere S 3 () ⊂ R4 of curvature  > 0. Then there exists a function
u : X → R such that the pull-back Riemannian metric g = f ∗ ·, · induced by
f on X is given by g = eu/2 dz dz = eu/2 (dx 2 + dy 2 ). u is called the conformal
factor of f . If we denote the mean curvature function of f by H , and the Hopf
differential of f by E dz2 , the equations of Gauss and Codazzi read

1
uzz + (H 2 + ) eu − 2 E E e−u = 0
2
H z eu = 2 E z .

We now specialize to the situation where f is minimal, i.e. H = 0, and maps

into the sphere of radius 2, i.e.  = 14 . Moreover let us suppose that f has no
umbilical points. Then we can choose a holomorphic chart z of X such that the
Hopf differential’s function E is constant and of modulus 14 . In this situation the
equation of Codazzi reduces to 0 = 0, whereas the equation of Gauss reduces to
the sinh-Gordon equation

u + sinh(u) = 0. (2.1)

This shows that minimal immersions f : X → S 3 () give rise to solutions of the
sinh-Gordon equation.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 21

S. Klein, A Spectral Theory for Simply Periodic Solutions of the Sinh-Gordon
Equation, Lecture Notes in Mathematics 2229,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01276-2_2
22 2 Minimal Immersions into the 3-Sphere and the Sinh-Gordon Equation

We now describe the relationship between minimal immersions into S 3 :=

S 3 (= 14 ) and solutions of the sinh-Gordon equation in more detail. For this
purpose, we suppose X to be simply connected.
We denote by fx and fy the derivative of f in the direction x resp. y, and
f
put ex := ffxx , ey := fyy . Moreover, we let N be the unit normal field of the
 
immersion f . Then ex , ey , N is an orthonormal basis field of T S 3 along f ,
hence the frame F := ex , ey , N, 12 f : X → SO(4) is a positively oriented
orthonormal basis field of R4 along f . X being simply connected, we can lift F
to the universal covering group SU(2) × SU(2) of SO(4), obtaining (F [1] , F [2] ) :
X → SU(2) × SU(2) with F [1] , F [2] : X → SU(2).
It is clear that the “integrability condition” ((F [1] , F [2] )z )z = ((F [1] , F [2] )z )z
translates into differential equations for F [1] and F [2] . But it is an insight due
to Bobenko [Bo-2] that the two components F [1] , F [2] of the frame are governed
by essentially the same differential equation. Indeed, there exists λ ∈ S 1 so that
we have (F [1] , F [2] ) = (Fλ , F−λ ), where Fλ satisfies the differential equation
dFλ = αλ Fλ with
   
1 −uz −λ−1 e−u/2 1 uz −eu/2
αλ := dz + dz.
4 eu/2 uz 4 λ e−u/2 −uz

An explicit calculation shows that

 
1 1 0
dαλ + [αλ ∧ αλ ] = (u + sinh(u)) dz ∧ dz,
8 0 −1

thus the Maurer-Cartan equation dαλ + [αλ ∧ αλ ] = 0 for αλ is equivalent to the

sinh-Gordon equation for u. Therefore we have the following equivalence:
Proposition 2.1 Suppose u : X → C is any differentiable function. Then the
following three statements are equivalent:
(a) The function u solves the sinh-Gordon equation u + sinh(u) = 0.
(b) The metric eu/2 dz dz satisfies the equations of Gauss and Codazzi for a
minimal immersion into S 3 with constant Hopf differential of modulus 14 .
(c) For any, or for all λ ∈ C∗ , αλ (as defined above) satisfies the Maurer-Cartan
equation dαλ + [αλ ∧ αλ ] = 0.
If any of the statements in the Proposition holds, then (c) shows that there is
a unique solution Fλ : X → SU(2) to the differential equation dFλ = αλ Fλ
with Fλ (z0 ) = 1 (where z0 ∈ X is fixed) for every λ ∈ C∗ . It is clear that Fλ
depends holomorphically on λ ∈ C∗ . In this setting, the family (Fλ )λ∈C∗ is called
the extended frame of u or of f ; the parameter λ is called the spectral parameter.
On the other hand, if u : X → C is a solution of the sinh-Gordon equation,
then the metric eu/2 dz dz together with any constant Hopf differential E dz2 of
modulus 14 satisfies the equations of Gauss and Codazzi for a minimal immersion
Another random document with
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of faith of any kind, revolves between his cash-book and the book of
the Law. Perhaps the most remarkable consequence of all was the
growth of an anti-Semitic school of exegesis of the Old Testament.
These, then, were the grievances of the orthodox: the Jew’s
want of religious feeling. Free-thinkers denounced him for a
superabundance of that very feeling. Stöcker, with unctuous
smartness, said, “the creed of the Jews stands on the blank page
between the Old and the New Testament.” Duhring ponderously
objected to “the tenacity with which the inherited religious manner of
viewing things is rooted in the Jewish mind.” These charges,
mutually exclusive though they were, were gladly espoused by those
who only needed some theory whereby to dignify their spite. The
Jew’s own foibles—his arrogance and love of display—supplied that
minimum of excuse which has ever been deemed sufficient for
persecution. The Jews, said their accusers, hold in their hands the
golden key which opens all doors, and flourish it insolently before
their less fortunate neighbours. They have killed the ancient
simplicity and frugality of German life by their ostentatious luxury,
and corrupted German idealism by their inordinate pursuit of material
comfort. German idealism has been killed by nationalism and
militarism. But, of course, no German patriot can be expected to see
this. What, however, surprises one is that it does not seem to have
occurred to those who denounce the Jew as the promoter of
materialism that they have the remedy in their own hands. Let them
cease to worship mammon, and mammon’s ministers will be
discredited. As it is, they inveigh against the Jew for enjoying the
very things which they themselves hunger after. In Germany, as
elsewhere, Christian panegyrists of plain living and high thinking
would perhaps like the Jewish millionaire better if they resembled
him less.
Prince Bismarck, in the prosecution of his great political object of
a united Germany had courted the support of the Liberal party,
which, on its side, was not unwilling to help a man who, no matter
how anti-Liberal his domestic policy might be, was, in the main, the
hierophant of the German nation’s aspirations. Thus, in 1866, there
came into being the National Liberal Party. Their position was,
however, a false one, as their support of Bismarck and their Liberal
tendencies could not be reconciled for a long time. But, while the
alliance lasted, the Liberals were instrumental in introducing many
legislative measures in the direction of progress, including certain
reforms as to banking and commerce. These innovations gave
offence to several classes of the population, and the fact that one of
the leaders of the National Liberal Party, Lasker, and a great many of
its members were Jews, was a brilliant opportunity for the
232
reactionary elements. The Conservatives caught at the
opportunity for discrediting the obnoxious reforms by describing
them as deliberately intended to serve the interests of the Jews.
Prince Bismarck, now hostile to a party for which he had no further
use, transferred the weight of his political and personal influence to
their adversaries and tried to lure the extreme Conservatives and
Catholics, as well as the working classes, by invigorating the anti-
Jewish agitation. The organs of these three parties were filled with
diatribes against the Jews, and in October, 1879, the first anti-Jewish
society was founded in Berlin and Dresden, with the object “to unite
all non-Jewish Germans of all persuasions, all parties, all stations,
into one common league, which, setting aside all separate interests,
all political differences, shall strive, with all earnestness and
diligence for the one end viz., to save our German fatherland from
becoming completely Judaised, and render residence in it
233
supportable to the posterity of the aborigines.” In accordance with
this patriotic programme the society christened itself “The Anti-
Semitic League,” partly because there was a sound of learning in the
word and partly to make it clear that the race, and not merely the
234
religion, of the Jew had aroused animosity. Prince Bismarck on
being interrogated about the movement is said to have answered,
“As a Minister of State, I condemn it; but as a Prussian, as a
German, as a Christian, as a man, I cannot help but approve of it.”
This speech, when compared with the speaker’s utterances of thirty
235
years before, affords sufficiently painful evidence of the long
stride which German statesmanship had taken backwards.
 Thus the pedantry of the schools joined hands with the prejudice
of the streets, social and political interests combined with national
vanity, economic jealousy, scientific sophistry, and religious bigotry to
bring into being a movement so utterly incongruous with modern,
and especially with German, ideas.
In 1880 and 1881 the warfare continued with systematized
vigour and increasing violence. Judenhetze, under its less vulgar
name, became a virulent epidemic. Both Catholic and Lutheran
clerics, mortally hostile in everything else, joined forces against the
common enemy, and vied with each other in their efforts to gain the
goodwill of the Christian Socialists. The Social Democrats were the
only party to denounce the anti-Semitic agitation and to take under
their protection the persecuted people; an attitude which earned
them the sincere detestation of the ultra-Conservatives. Herr Marr,
the great anti-Jewish pamphleteer, however, devoted a whole
masterpiece to the demonstration of the fact that the Social
Democrats, whom he elegantly called “red mice,” were in every way
to be preferred to the Jewish “golden rats.” But the movement, none
the less, continued progressing. Meetings were held at which the
“Semites” were furiously attacked. The members of the “German”
League passed solemn resolutions to eschew all intercourse, social
or commercial, with the enemies of the Teutonic race, and Herr
Stöcker and his followers, in their zeal for “the strengthening of the
Christian Germanic spirit,” presented a petition to the Prussian
Chambers, praying:
“That immigration of foreign Jews into Germany might have
some restrictions placed upon it.
“That the Jews might be excluded from all posts of supreme
authority, and that in courts of justice a certain limitation of their
power be instituted.
“That Christian schools, though used by Jewish scholars, should
remain distinctively Christian, and that Jewish teachers only be
employed where the nature of the subject taught renders it desirable.
“That a census or report of the Jewish population be forthwith
236
prepared.”
 The anti-Semitic Leagues, though disapproving of violence in
their manifestoes, in practice were only too ready to encourage the
most sordid passions and the basest prejudices of the poor and
ignorant masses, so that, while anti-Semitism led to stormy scenes
in the Prussian Diet, it translated itself into more stormy riots outside.
Pamphlets and duels were the order of the day among the upper
classes, sanguinary encounters between the Jewish and German
mobs among the lower. The Liberals protested, the Crown Prince
Frederick tried to save the Jews from this dastardly persecution, and
the movement was publicly denounced by many distinguished
Germans, such as Virchow and Mommsen, as a subversion of the
principles of humanitarianism promulgated by German philosophy,
as a blasphemy against German ideals, and as a stain on German
civilisation. But Jew-baiting was not checked before many thousands
of Jews were compelled to leave their country—the country to which
they gave Mendelssohn the philosopher and Mendelssohn the
composer, Heine and Börne, Offenbach and Auerbach, Ense, Ewald,
Jacoby, and a host of other great men, including Lasker, who a few
years before had done his utmost to avert the financial catastrophe
for which his co-religionists now suffered.
A German who has played an active part in his country’s history
from 1848 onwards does not hesitate to ascribe “the disgraceful
orgies of the Jews’ Chace, begun on a large scale at Berlin on the
New Year’s night of 1880–81,” to Prince Bismarck’s direct inspiration.
“There was evidently,” he says, writing not long after those events,
“more method in those ugly rushes and riots than may be generally
suspected.... The German citizens of Hebrew origin, or of the Mosaic
faith, belong, in their great majority, to the Liberal and Radical camp.
Several of them have achieved the most honourable prominence in
the progressive parties to which they attached themselves. The great
statesman whose ideal is his own Dictatorship under cover of the
King’s personal Government, finding these popular leaders of
Semitic blood as stumbling-blocks in his path, did not scruple to dally
coquettishly with the organisers and approvers of the Jews’ Hunt. An
underhand alliance was struck up, in old Roman fashion, between
out-and-out partisans of Caesarism and certain shady leaders of a
misguided rabble. A Court Preacher, Stöcker, acted as the go-
between and spiritual head of the crusade. The same man is now in
the German Parliament a chief exponent of this cross-breed between
princely absolutism and professed philanthropic care for the
237
multitude.”
Soon, however, a discrepancy became apparent between the
leaders of the nationalist and the leaders of the religious and
economic forces. While anti-Semites, strictly so called, clamoured for
a revival of the ancient disabilities which doomed the Jew to political
servitude and social ostracism, the Christian Socialists were not
prepared to go so far. This moderation was partly due to the fact that
the anti-Semites had manifested symptoms of wishing to include
Christianity in their denunciation of Judaism as a Semitic creed—a
tendency which, of course, could inspire no sympathy in orthodox
theologians and Court Preachers. The schism was temporarily
healed in 1886: but it was reopened three years later. However, this
divergence of views did not affect the rank and file of the anti-Jewish
agitators. They cared little for intellectual theories; but were frankly
actuated by the blind and unreasoning instincts of their mediaeval
ancestors. Again the populace found allies among the impecunious
and the unscrupulous, who supplied it with food for its credulity, and
among the Catholic clergy, who inflamed its fanaticism. The
mediaeval charge of ritual murder was once more revived, and it led
to the destruction of Jewish houses and the burning of Jewish
synagogues.
Prince Bismarck’s retirement, in 1890, and the abandonment of
his anti-Liberal programme did not mend matters. The Conservatives
endeavoured to gain the popular ear by coming forth as the
champions of national unity and of the Christian faith, and by
1892
denouncing the Jews as the enemies of both. This
change of attitude brought about a reconciliation with
the nationalist anti-Semites, whose rabid programme was fully
accepted. And now the two sections united brought to bear all their
strength against the Jews. Christianity and stupidity, respectability
and sansculottism, were found marshalled in one compact phalanx
as in the days of yore. In the autumn of 1893 a Bill was brought into
the German Diet, asking that the Talmud should be subjected to an
official examination, and it was seriously proposed that the old
Commission appointed for that purpose by the Emperor Maximilian
at the instigation of Pfefferkorn at the beginning of the sixteenth
century should be roused from its sleep of ages. But the alliance was
too grotesque to be effective. The saner section of the Conservatives
was shocked at the unprincipled tactics and the excessive fury of
their allies, and, though the lower orders of their supporters in the
country were not troubled by such delicacy, yet the extreme anti-
Semitic party lost, through its own extravagance, much of its
influence among the educated. Herr Stöcker was expelled from
Court, and soon after from the ranks of the Conservative party. The
Catholics also were shamed into breaking all connection with the
scandalous demagogues, and thus the anti-Semitic distemper,
though still an element of discord in the Reichstag, has ceased to be
an element of danger—for the present. But, if the paroxysm is over,
the disease is not cured. Indeed, individual anti-Semites still display
a degree of fervour that would have done credit to Herr Marr himself
on the hey-day of his frenzy. The leader of these loyal Jew-haters is
Count Puckler, whose speeches are sold in the streets of Berlin, and
read by many Germans with profound approval. All that is needed is
some encouragement from above, and then we may again see many
volunteering to translate the prophet’s visions into deeds of blood.
From Germany Anti-Semitism found its way to the neighbouring
states. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire politicians and publicists
caught the rabies and spread it without delay. As early as 1880 an
attempt was made to establish in Hungary an anti-Semitic league
after the German pattern, and, though the healthier and more
enlightened portion of the nation was loth to forget the liberal
traditions of the past and the services rendered by the Jews in the
struggle for Hungarian independence, the obscurantist elements
among the people and the aristocracy, in the Church and the official
classes,—the vulgar high and low—were not disinclined to listen to
the dictates of bigotry and superstition. An opportunity for a
declaration of the latent prejudice offered in 1881, when a Catholic
Professor of Hebrew gravely accused the Jews of secretly holding
the destruction of the Gentiles as a religious tenet; the ritual murder
of Christians being only one method for carrying out this moral
obligation. Despite exposure and open repudiation, the worthy
Professor’s utterances tallied so well with preconceived ideas that
the prehistoric fiction found many eager believers. The
1882
disappearance of a Christian girl from a Hungarian
village in the next year strengthened the belief and led to brutal
outrages on the Jews at Buda-Pesth, Zala and elsewhere, the riots
being only quelled by the proclamation of martial law. This measure,
as was natural, was turned into an instrument of attack on the Liberal
Government, already unpopular, as sheltering the enemies of
mankind. An inquiry was instituted into the alleged murder, many
Jews were arrested, and evidence was manufactured. But in the trial
which ensued the plot was stripped of all its shameful vestments of
perjury, forgery, and intimidation, and the prisoners were acquitted.
While the anti-Semites were covering themselves with contempt
and ridicule in Hungary, in Austria the movement attained serious
dimensions. The campaign, begun with occasional pamphlets,
followed the development of German anti-Semitism. In Austria, as in
Germany, Liberalism had been undermined by that worst form of
racial intolerance known as Christian Socialism, which was and is
nothing but the old spirit of clerical reaction masquerading in the
guise of anti-Semitic prejudice and pseudo-democratic
238
demagogy. In Austria, as in Germany, the operations were
conducted by two bodies of men—the racial and the religious
enemies of the Jew. The two bodies met on the common ground of
objection to the Jews’ acquiring land. The anti-Semites proper did
not like to see the land falling into the hands of non-Austrians, and
the Christian Socialists objected to its falling into the hands of infidel
financiers. The agitation was gradually organised, and in 1882 two
leagues were formed in Vienna. Austrian, like German, anti-
Semitism was immediately exploited for party purposes. Many
politicians, though themselves free from anti-Semitic prejudice, were
ready to adopt a cause which promised to add to their own strength
or to weaken their opponents. They, therefore, loudly preached a
doctrine which they despised, excited passions which they did not
share, and advocated principles which in all probability they would
have shrunk from acting upon. Thus the support of the anti-Semitic
leagues was solicited by the Radical Nationalists on one hand, and
by the Liberal Government on the other. The Nationalists being less
insincere in their prejudices, won the victory which they deserved,
and the coalition between them and the Christian Socialists derived
additional strength from the anti-clerical policy of the Liberal party,
which compelled many Catholics who had hitherto stood aloof, to
join the ranks of anti-Semitism. Henceforth the
1892
agitation was conducted under the auspices of the
Roman Church. The clerical press disseminated the seed in the
cafés, and the priests fulminated against the Jews from the pulpit.
The time-dishonoured charge of ritual murder was not forgotten, and
the Hungarian Upper House, in 1894, rejected the Liberal Bill which
placed Judaism on a footing of equality with other denominations.
The Liberals had succeeded in offending both the Radical
Nationalists and the Clericals. They offended the former by
advocating Jewish rights, and the latter by combating the tyranny of
the Church. The alliance between those two enemies of Liberalism
was, in 1895, blessed by the Pope, who hoped to gain over, or at
least to control, the Radicals by drawing closer the bonds which
united them with the Clericals. The Vatican, disappointed in the long-
cherished hope of recovering its temporal power by the help of the
Catholic monarchs, was induced to court the democracy. Thus the
spiritual tribunal which has always taken its stand on the lofty
platform of obedience to authority, in the pursuance of secular ends
did not hesitate to lend its sanction to the advocates of violence and
revolt. The anti-Jewish agitation, hallowed by the Vicar of Christ,
carried all before it. The anti-Semites secured a vast majority in the
Municipal Council of Vienna, notwithstanding the opposition on the
part of the Emperor, who dissolved the council twice, only to be met
each time with an even greater anti-Semitic triumph; and in the
Parliamentary Elections of 1897 the allied powers of Radical
Nationalism and Clericalism secured a strong position in the Austrian
Reichsrath. This was the meridian of anti-Semitic popularity in
Austria. But here, as in Germany, the unseemly and unnatural
coalition between rabid Nationalism and respectable Clericalism
could not last long, and, while it lasted, could command but little
respect. Three years afterwards the General Election showed a
decline of public confidence in the allies, and many of the Radical
Nationalists deserted the ranks to form an independent and anti-
Clerical party, while, on the other hand, the Vatican thought it
expedient to withdraw its sanction from the Christian Socialists.
Austro-Hungarian anti-Semitism, however, though much
weakened, is not dead, and it would be taking too sanguine a view of
human nature and human intelligence to hope that the prejudices,
the passions, and the sophisms which have led to the recrudescence
of Jew-hatred will not assert themselves again. In point of fact, there
are ample signs to confirm this pessimistic forecast. On October 21,
1904, the Diet of Lower Austria witnessed a scene which a spectator
pronounced “unparalleled for vulgarity and demagogic impudence
even in this country of crazy Parliamentarism.” The anti-Semitic and
Christian Socialist parties, which still command an overwhelming
majority both in the Diet and in the Vienna Municipal Council, had
organised a torch-light procession in honour of the sixtieth birthday
of Dr. Lueger, the anti-Semite Burgomaster of Vienna. The Premier
instructed the police to prohibit the demonstration. Thereupon the
outraged worshippers of the great hero of Christian Socialism
brought in a motion in which they accused the Premier of having
yielded to Jewish pressure and to the terrorism of the Social
Democrats, the champions of the Jews, and of “having thereby given
proof of shameful cowardice.” The motion was carried amid loud
acclamations in honour of Dr. Lueger who, on his followers asserting
that the reason for the Government’s attitude was “the jealousy
caused in the highest circles by the Burgomaster’s popularity,”
modestly assured the House that “he was not jealous of the Emperor
and repudiated the supposition that he envied the reverence and
affection which surrounded the Monarch’s person.” At the end of the
sitting Dr. Lueger was enthusiastically cheered in the streets, while a
239
Social Democratic Deputy was insulted and spat upon. This
demagogue, who by the volume of his voice, the character of his wit
and the extent of his power over the Viennese mob, recalls vividly
the Cleon of Aristophanes, a year later warned the Austrian Jews
openly and with impunity that the Kishineff tragedy might repeat itself
in Vienna. Even more recently twenty thousand Christian Socialists,
Clericals and anti-Semites, headed and inflamed by Dr. Lueger,
made a violent demonstration outside the Hungarian Delegation
240
building, as a protest against the policy of the “Judaeo-Magyars.”
Within a week of this outburst Dr. Lueger, in company with Herr
Schneider, a militant anti-Semite Deputy, paid a visit to Bucharest,
where he was fêted by all classes of Roumanian society, from the
King downwards: a glorification of this arch-enemy of the Jews as
significant as it is natural in a country where Jew-hatred is at its
height. Clearly, Austrian anti-Semitism is anything but dead.
The reply of the Austrian Jews to the anti-Semites is
characteristic of the movement. Hitherto they had been content to
identify themselves politically with their Christian compatriots. But the
continued antipathy on the part of the latter has recently forced them
to adopt a purely Jewish attitude. On the initiative of the Jewish
representatives of Galicia in the Reichsrath and in the Galician Diet,
the Jews of that province have resolved to create a Jewish
organisation for the defence of the political rights and economic
241
interests of their community. Thus modern Jew-haters foster by
their own efforts the very tribalism which they condemn, just as their
mediaeval ancestors compelled the Jews to adopt money-lending as
a profession and then denounced them for so doing.
In France the power of the Jews since the establishment of the
Third Republic increased steadily, and their number was to some
extent swelled by the arrival of brethren driven by anti-Semitism out
of Germany. Yet, as late as 1881 a writer felt justified in stating that
“the effervescence of a certain feeling against the Jews is apparent
in almost all the large states of the world with the single exception
242
perhaps of France.” This comparative immunity from the general
delirium, however, was not to last much longer. Nationalism,
clericalism, and economic jealousy in France, as elsewhere, were at
work, and demagogues ready to make use of these forces were not
wanting.
Ernest Renan, in 1882, aimed some of his delicately-pointed
shafts of irony at “the modern Israelite with whom our great
commercial towns of Europe have become acquainted during the
last fifty years.... How careless he shows himself of a paradise
mankind has accepted upon his word; with what ease he
accommodates himself to all the folds of modern civilisation; how
quickly he is freed from all dynastic and feudal prejudice; and how
can he enjoy a world he has not made, gather the fruits of a field he
has not tilled, supplant the blockhead who persecutes him, or make
himself necessary to the fool who despises him. It is for him, you
would think, that Clovis and his Franks fought, that the race of Capet
unfolded its policy of a thousand years, that Philip Augustus
conquered at Bouvines and Condé at Rocroi!... He who overturned
the world by his faith in the kingdom of God believes now in wealth
243
only.” That Renan, the high-priest of Idealism, should feel
aggrieved at the materialism of the modern representative of his
beloved Semitic race is not surprising. It is, however, surprising that
the Jew, who has so often been persecuted for his obstinate
adherence to his traditions and for his detachment from his
surroundings, should be taken to task by Renan for the ease with
which “he accommodates himself to all the folds of modern
civilisation.” Either Renan is right or the anti-Semites. One and the
same body of men cannot very well be both obdurate and
accommodating. It is, however, the Jew’s special privilege to be
denounced by one half of the world for the possession of a certain
quality, and by the other half for the lack of it. Consistency has never
been a marked characteristic of Jew-haters, and, perhaps, it is not
reasonable to expect it from men under the spell of so engrossing a
pastime as the excommunication of their fellows.
Of course, Renan himself, his mellifluous mockery
notwithstanding, was the very antithesis of a Jew-hater. Nationalism
had no greater enemy and Liberalism no warmer champion than
Renan. He never tired of asserting that ethnographical facts
possessed only a scientific importance, and were devoid of all
244
political significance. So far as the Jews were concerned, he
proclaimed with enthusiasm the services rendered by them to the
cause of civilisation and progress in the past, and emphatically
expressed his conviction that they were destined to render equally
brilliant services in the future: “Every Jew,” he said, “is essentially a
Liberal, while the enemies of Judaism, examined closely, will be
found to be, in general, the enemies of the modern spirit. This,” he
added, “applies especially to the French Jews, such as they have
been made by the Revolution; but I am persuaded that every country
which will repeat the experiment, renounce State religion, secularise
the civil life, and establish the equality of all the citizens before the
law, will arrive at the same result and will find as excellent patriots in
the Jewish creed as in other creeds.” “The work of the nineteenth
century,” he declared on another occasion, “is to demolish all the
ghettos, and I do not congratulate those who elsewhere seek to
245
rebuild them.”
But at the very moment, when Renan was giving utterance to
these noble sentiments, there was preparing in his own country an
agitation precisely similar to that which had “elsewhere sought to
rebuild the ghettos.”
The slumbering prejudice against the Jew was in France first
awakened by the Panama scandals, and immediately afterwards
there was formed in Paris a union with the object of freeing the
country from the financial tyranny of Jews and other non-Catholics
and foreigners. The Vatican, ever on the alert, saw in the movement
an opportunity of strengthening the clerical interest in a state which
had so sadly neglected its traditional rôle of the Pope’s champion,
and from an eldest daughter of the Church had turned into its
bitterest enemy. The Pope, therefore, bestowed upon the union his
1882
blessing. But the institution after a brief career ended
in a bankruptcy from which not even Papal prayers
could save it. Like Julius Caesar’s spirit, however, the union even
after its dissolution continued to harass its rivals. Its failure, attributed
to the machinations of the Jews, put fresh life into the anti-Semitic
agitation. Publicists interpreted the popular feeling and gratified the
national amour propre by describing in sombre colours the
pernicious influence of the Jewish plutocracy on the life of France,
and by tracing to that influence the undeniable immorality of French
246
society. The discomfiture of that brilliant and weak adventurer,
Boulanger, brought about, as it was, chiefly by the efforts of a Jewish
journalist of German extraction and connections, drew down upon
the Jews, and especially upon foreign Jews, the wrath of General
Boulanger’s supporters. An anti-Semitic League was founded in
Paris, with branches in the provinces. The Royalists and the
Nationalists, the warriors of the Church and the warriors of the army,
the desperate defenders of lost causes, who had nothing more to
lose, and the zealots for new causes, who had as yet everything to
win, all rallied round the standard of anti-Semitism, which derived
additional popularity and glory from the alliance of France with
Russia, the persecutrix of Israel. Soon after an anti-
1892
Semitic journal made its appearance in Paris, and its
columns were filled with scandals, scented out with truly inquisitorial
diligence, and with attacks on Jewish officers. Anti-Jewish feeling
daily grew in bitterness, the term “Juif” came to be accepted as a
synonym for variety of villainy, and the position of the Jewish officers
in the French army became intolerable, till the ferment culminated in
the arrest and conviction of Captain Dreyfus.
1894
All the prejudices and passions of the past and all
the conflicting interests of the present were now gathered up into a
storm almost unparalleled in the history of contemporary Europe.
The most popular newspapers vied with each other in pandering to
the lowest feelings and most ignorant prejudices of the vulgarest
classes of the French nation. From one end of France to the other
nothing was heard but execrations of the Jewish traitor. The modern
Frenchman was not unwilling to forgive the Jew his supposed enmity
to Christianity, but what patriot could forgive him his supposed
treachery to the French army? The hatred of the race, expressed
with eloquent virulence in Parliament and in the press, found even
more vigorous expression with dynamite, and an
1895
attempt was made to blow up the Rothschild Bank in
Paris. Meanwhile the Captain’s friends worked with untiring
earnestness, patience, and ability to establish his innocence. A
series of disclosures ensued; the public, led by the late M. Zola,
Colonel Picquart, and other advocates of justice, began to feel
qualms on the subject, and the demand for a revision of the trial
grew daily louder. By this time the Dreyfus affair had been drawn into
the mad vortex of party politics, and this accounts for the extent and
depth of an agitation hardly intelligible when viewed in relation to the
247
comparatively small number of French Jews. To be or not to be
revised, that was the question, and upon the answer the rival parties
staked their reputations and their political ideals. The Liberals
defended Dreyfus not so much because they believed him to be
innocent, as because he was attacked by the Clericals. The
Clericals, on the other hand, denounced the Dreyfusards as enemies
of their country and of its army—the Christian Faith was tactfully kept
in the background—a distinguished Academician wrote a book on
Nationalism in which he analysed Zola’s genius and character, and
proved to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of thousands of
readers, that Zola was not a Frenchman.
But in the midst of all this clamour, riot, vilification and assault,
the demand for a revision continued persistently to gain ground, and
the Liberals, representing the sanest and healthiest element in the
1898
Republic, finally prevailed. The new trial at Rennes
brought to light the forgeries and perjuries by which the
conviction of the Jewish captain had been secured. None the less,
the sentence was not revoked. The verdict of the new court-martial
was an attempt to save judicial appearances by finding the prisoner
guilty, and to save justice by recommending him to mercy. Dreyfus
was restored to his family, but not to his honour. However, public
opinion both in France and abroad had forestalled the verdict of the
Court by acquitting the prisoner of the crime and by pitying in him the
victim of a foul conspiracy. Nationalism, Clericalism, Royalism, and
all the legions of anti-Semitism received a severe blow by the
triumph of the Dreyfusards; but, though their star was no longer at its
zenith, it had not yet set. The agitation in favour of a complete
reversal of Captain Dreyfus’ sentence continued, and the demand for
a new revision of the case was pronounced by the Nationalists as a
fresh development of the “anti-national” policy of the Liberals, and as
a conspiracy on their part for the purpose of inflicting a new
humiliation on the Army by constraining it to proclaim the innocence
of a man it had twice condemned as a traitor. A joint manifesto,
bearing the signatures of the Patriotic League, the National Anti-
Semitic Federation, and the French Socialist Party, was issued
appealing to the French public “to frustrate the efforts of the occult
248
Sectarians, Internationalists, and financial powers.”
At the same time anti-Semitic sentiments found applauding
audiences in the French theatres, as was shown in December, 1903,
by the success at the Paris Gymnase of Le Retour de Jérusalem—a
play which flattered the feelings of the audience by dwelling on the
familiar points of the anti-Semitic creed: the Jews’ clannishness, their
readiness to help their own co-religionists, their sans patrie; and
justified its prejudices by emphasising that natural incompatibility of
temperament which is supposed to doom Jew and Gentile to
everlasting alienation. Nevertheless, the wiser section of the French
1906 July 12–
people carried the day in the end. The Court of
13 Cassation, the highest tribunal in France, after two
years’ examination, quashed the verdict of the Rennes
court-martial, declaring that there never was any foundation for any
of the charges brought against Captain Dreyfus. The French
Government thereupon submitted to Parliament a Bill providing for
the complete rehabilitation of all the victims of the conspiracy. The
Bill was passed by an overwhelming majority. Captain Dreyfus was
promoted to the rank of Major and presented with the Cross of the
Legion of Honour, Col. Picquart was made a Brigadier-General, the
remains of M. Zola were transferred to the Pantheon, and in the
gallery of the Senate were erected busts of the two Senators who
first stood out in favour of the innocence of Dreyfus. Thus France
wiped out the stain on its national character, and the drama which
had agitated the world for twelve years came to a happy end. This
end, however, satisfactory as it is, must be regarded as a victory of
justice due to special political causes rather than as a proof of a
revolution of the popular attitude towards the Jews, or as a
guarantee against a recrudescence of French anti-Semitism in the
future. The “Jewish Peril” is one of those evil spirits which are in the
habit of vanishing and re-appearing from time to time, always with a
fresh face and changed garb, but always the same.
The Jewish Question from France passed to the French colony
of Algeria. In 1870 an Act, known as the Crémieux Decree,
enfranchised the Jewish inhabitants of the colony en masse. For
twenty-five years the measure excited little or no protest. But, as a
result of the anti-Jewish agitation in the mother country, it suddenly
became the subject on which elections were passionately fought and
the barrier that divided local politicians into two opposite parties:
Judaisants and Anti-Juifs. A Commission appointed to inquire into
this sudden revulsion of feeling, reported that the alleged reasons
were “usury” and the unwillingness of the Jews to assimilate
themselves to the French. Usury, it was recognised by sensible
Frenchmen, is inevitable in a country still in the Algerian stage of
economic development. Moreover, the official inquiry proved that all
the Jews are not usurers, and that all the usurers are not Jews; that,
in fact, the mass of the Jewish inhabitants of Algeria are very
249
poor. None the less, these allegations bring into vivid relief the
essential antiquity of modern anti-Semitism.
The modern version of Jew-hatred, as was only natural, was
welcomed in both Roumania and Russia. Both countries are still
mediaeval in most respects; but the foreign doctrine of Nationalism,
concealing, as it does, a very old instinct under a new euphemistic
name, presented nothing incongruous with indigenous bigotry.
Economic considerations deepened the bitter feeling against the
Jew, as has been narrated.
Italy and Greece have declined to listen to the new creed of
intolerance. There are few Jews in those countries. Besides, both
the Italians and the Greeks, though sensitively attached to their
national ideals, have too keen a sense of proportion, and the
Greeks, at all events, too much commercial ability to entertain any
jealousy of the Jew.
England has not failed in this, as in former ages, to follow, after a
lukewarm and sluggish fashion, the Continental evolution of the
feeling towards the Jew. In popular literature and art the Jew had
never ceased to figure as an object of derision and repugnance.
What reader of Dickens need be reminded of the execrable Mr.
Fagin, trainer of juvenile criminals and tormentor of poor Oliver Twist,
or of Cruikshank’s portrait of that and other Israelites? But these
pleasant creations, however grossly they may sin against truth, were
as innocent of any deliberate intention to stir up a hatred against the
Jew as Shakespeare’s and Marlowe’s personifications of evil in the
characters of Shylock and Barabas. The taint of malignant anti-
Semitism made its first unmistakable appearance in England during
the Eastern Crisis of 1876–1878. A Jew was then Prime Minister,
and that Jew opposed the pro-Bulgarian policy of the Liberal party.
To that party the conflict between the Sultan and his Christian
subjects was then, as it still is, a conflict between the Cross and the
Crescent, between Europe and Asia, between Aryanism and
Semitism. What mattered to the Liberal politicians that Islam, in point
of fact, since its first missionary zeal spent itself many centuries ago
in Asia and Africa, has never tried, and does not want, to kill
Christianity? What mattered to them that Christianity, in point of
history, is a Semitic creed, and in its original Eastern form nearer to
Islam than to the product of the Western temperament which passes
under the same name? What mattered to them that the Turks, after
five or six centuries of constant marriage to women of the subject
races, have, ethnographically speaking, become more European
than the Bulgarians, who, in point of blood, are more Turkish than
the modern Turks? What mattered to them that the Turks are not
Semites at all? What mattered to the opponents of the Jew that the
doctrine of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire had been
promulgated before Disraeli left school, and that his Eastern policy of
a regenerated Turkey was a policy evolved by as good Christians as
themselves long before Disraeli became a power in the land—by
men like the Duke of Wellington and Sir Stratford Canning—and
carried on by contemporary diplomatists and statesmen like Lord
Salisbury, Sir Henry Layard, and Sir Henry Elliot? These are mere
facts. The Liberal party wanted broad principles and a euphonious
war-cry. Disraeli was opposed to Russia’s ambition, and Disraeli was
a Jew. What could be easier than to connect the two things? The
enemy of Russia was an enemy of Christianity, of Aryanism, of
Europe. If any doubt was possible, it could easily be dispelled by a
reference to Disraeli’s romances. There, as elsewhere, in season
and out of season, Disraeli preached the greatness of his persecuted
race with a sincerity, a courage and a consistency which, in the eyes
of the neutral student, form the noblest trait in his character; in the
eyes of a political opponent, the most conclusive proof of his Jewish
hostility to Christianity. Accordingly, we find Mr. Gladstone, in 1876,
confiding to the sympathetic ear of his friend, the Duke of Argyll, the
following philosophical reflection: “I have a strong suspicion that
Dizzy’s crypto-Judaism has had to do with his policy: the Jews of the
East bitterly hate the Christians, who have not always used them
250
well.”
At the same time other politicians vented their prejudice against
251
the Jews, and against Disraeli’s “Jewish aims” in various books,
pamphlets, speeches and articles, while soon after, when the
eloquent tongue was for ever silenced, and the man who had bent
Europe to his will was no longer able to defend himself, reverend
ecclesiastics took pains to trace, with an enthusiasm and an acumen
worthy of a less ignoble task, the origin and development of the great
statesman’s “deceitfulness,” of his “political dishonesty,” of his
“disregard of morality in the pursuit of personal ambition,” of his
“theological and political scepticism,” of his “jealousy for the spiritual
and intellectual supremacy of the Semitic race,” and the rest of his
virtues, from his early home education under his Jewish sceptic of a
father and his vulgar Jewess of a mother, through his school life, his
apprenticeship in a solicitor’s office, the various stages of his literary
and political career, up to the moment of his death. It was, however,
pointed out with an air of charitable patronage not unamusing, when
the relative magnitude of the author and the subject of the criticism is
considered, that “it would be harsh and unfair to judge him by our
ordinary standard of political morality,” for “Mr. Disraeli started on his
public career with little or no furniture of moral or religious principles
252
of any kind.” The writer repeated the favourite explanation of
Disraeli’s opposition to Gladstone’s Eastern policy, namely, that it
arose from the fact that “the ‘bag and baggage’ policy cut rudely
across his cherished convictions respecting the ‘Semitic principle.’
The Turks, indeed,” the learned theologian naïvely observes, “do not
belong to the Semitic race; but their theocratic polity is the product of
a Semitic brain, and was, therefore, sacred in the eyes of Lord
253
Beaconsfield.” In the writer’s opinion Disraeli’s dearest ideal,
when it was not his own pre-eminence, was the pre-eminence of the
Jewish nation, his whole career being a compound of selfishness
and Semitism.
While chivalrous theologians made these interesting post-
mortem investigations into the character of the champion of
Semitism, learned professors made equally interesting studies in the
character of anti-Semitism. And while the former denounced that
representative of the race as one who had made “self-
aggrandisement the one aim of his life,” the latter endeavoured to
justify the conduct of its enemies on the ground of Hebrew
“tribalism,” “materialism,” “opportunism,” “cosmopolitanism,” and
254
other vices ending in —ism.
As these charges are still brought against the Jews by their
enemies in England, it may be not irrelevant to answer some of them
once for all. No one with a biographical dictionary on his book-shelf
requires to be told that the Jewish people, far from specialising in
material aims, has never shirked its due share in the world’s
intellectual work, though it has seldom been accorded its due share
of the world’s recognition. Look wheresoever we like, in science, art,
music, philosophy, letters, politics, we everywhere find the Jew
generously contributing to the common fund of human knowledge.
From Higher Criticism, which was initiated by a Jew in the third
century, and Comparative Philology, also originated by a Jew in the
ninth, through Spinoza’s philosophical work in the seventeenth, and
Mendelssohn’s in the eighteenth, down to the psychological labours
of Steinthal, who died in 1892—to mention only a few of the best
known names—we find proofs which speak for themselves, and
abundantly refute the calumny that the Jews are a race of mere
money-mongers and money-grabbers. In the Dark Ages the
conditions under which Israel was doomed to live were by no means
favourable to the development of spiritual qualities. Mediaeval
Europe, as a rule, did not allow more than three outlets to Hebrew
activity. The Jew could only become a merchant, a financier, or a
physician, and in all these three professions he achieved the
distinction to which his superiority entitled him. Imaginative by
nature, cosmopolitan by necessity, a reasoner and a linguist by
education, with all his faculties sharpened by persecution, and all his
passions disciplined by adversity, the Jew could not but assert
himself among his narrow-minded and ignorant contemporaries.
Accordingly we find the mediaeval Jew foremost in Medicine,
Commerce, and Finance. As to medicine, enough has already been
said. As to commerce, the supremacy of the Jews has never been
disputed. Their financial pre-eminence is equally recognised. But it is
not often recalled that the Jews, in order to facilitate the transmission
of their wealth amidst the violence and extortions of the Middle Ages,
were the first to invent the admirable system of paper currency—an
invention which, Alison the historian asserts, had it been made
earlier, might have averted the downfall of the Western Roman
Empire. But, apart from chrematistic pursuits, even in the Middle
Ages the Jews, prevented by persecution and social isolation from
tying themselves permanently to any particular country, and forced to
lead a nomad existence, used their opportunities of travel not only
for the purpose of commerce, but also for the transmission of
knowledge. Thus, consciously or not, the mediaeval Jew became the
great middleman by whose agency what learning there was found its
way from country to country. In Spain, before the holy war against
the race deprived it of the conditions necessary for the development
of its genius, we have seen the Jews distinguishing themselves in
literature, scholastic philosophy, science, and diplomacy. After their
expulsion the Spanish exiles influenced the culture of the countries
over which they spread in many ways; Baruch Spinoza being only
the greatest star in a great constellation. Even in England, where few
of those refugees contrived to penetrate, we find their spiritual
influence in King James’s translation of the Bible, which in many
255
places bears the traces of David Kimchi’s Commentary.
The place of Israel in the mediaeval world has been described
with equal justness and eloquence by Lecky: “While those around
them were grovelling in the darkness of besotted ignorance; while
juggling miracles and lying relics were themes on which almost all
Europe was expatiating; while the intellect of Christendom,
enthralled by countless persecutions, had sunk into a deadly torpor,
in which all love of inquiry and all search for truth were abandoned,