Dupin Cyclide - Definitions and Properties

Definitions and Properties

There are several equivalent definitions of Dupin cyclides, of which, there are several main characteristics of them. The definition as geometric inversions of standard tori shows that the class of Dupin cyclides is invariant under Möbius (or conformal) transformations. Since a standard torus is an orbit of a two dimensional abelian subgroup of the Euclidean group, it follows that the cyclides are orbits of two dimensional abelian subgroups of the group of Möbius transformations, and this provides a second way to define them.

A third property which characterizes Dupin cyclides is the fact that their curvature lines are all circles (possibly through the point at infinity). Equivalently, the curvature spheres, which are the spheres tangent to the surface with radii equal to the reciprocals of the principal curvatures at the point of tangency, are constant along the corresponding curvature lines: they are the tangent spheres containing the corresponding curvature lines as great circles. Equivalently again, both sheets of the focal surface degenerate to conics. It follows that any Dupin cyclide is a channel surface (i.e., the envelope of a one parameter family of spheres) in two different ways, and this gives another characterization.

The definition in terms of spheres shows that the class of Dupin cyclides is invariant under the larger group of all Lie sphere transformations. In fact any two Dupin cyclides are Lie equivalent. They form (in some sense) the simplest class of Lie invariant surfaces after the spheres, and are therefore particularly significant in Lie sphere geometry.

The definition also means that a Dupin cyclide is the envelope of the one parameter family of spheres tangent to three given mutually tangent spheres. It follows that it is tangent to infinitely many Soddy's hexlet configurations of spheres.