{ "id": "math/0604247", "version": "v5", "published": "2006-04-11T13:16:37.000Z", "updated": "2008-05-13T06:49:40.000Z", "title": "Generalized DPW method and an application to isometric immersions of space forms", "authors": [ "David Brander", "Josef Dorfmeister" ], "comment": "Some typographical corrections", "journal": "Math. Z. 2008", "doi": "10.1007/s00209-008-0367-9", "categories": [ "math.DG", "math.DS" ], "abstract": "Let $G$ be a complex Lie group and $\\Lambda G$ denote the group of maps from the unit circle ${\\mathbb S}^1$ into $G$, of a suitable class. A differentiable map $F$ from a manifold $M$ into $\\Lambda G$, is said to be of \\emph{connection order $(_a^b)$} if the Fourier expansion in the loop parameter $\\lambda$ of the ${\\mathbb S}^1$-family of Maurer-Cartan forms for $F$, namely $F_\\lambda^{-1} \\dd F_\\lambda$, is of the form $\\sum_{i=a}^b \\alpha_i \\lambda^i$. Most integrable systems in geometry are associated to such a map. Roughly speaking, the DPW method used a Birkhoff type splitting to reduce a harmonic map into a symmetric space, which can be represented by a certain order $(_{-1}^1)$ map, into a pair of simpler maps of order $(_{-1}^{-1})$ and $(_1^1)$ respectively. Conversely, one could construct such a harmonic map from any pair of $(_{-1}^{-1})$ and $(_1^1)$ maps. This allowed a Weierstrass type description of harmonic maps into symmetric spaces. We extend this method to show that, for a large class of loop groups, a connection order $(_a^b)$ map, for $a<0