%0 Journal Article
%T On spacelike surfaces in 4-dimensional Lorentz-Minkowski spacetime through a lightcone
%A Francisco J. Palomo
%A Alfonso Romero
%J Mathematics
%D 2012
%I arXiv
%X On any spacelike surface in a lightcone of four dimensional Lorentz-Minkowski space a distinguished smooth function is considered. It is shown how both extrinsic and intrinsic geometry of such a surface is codified by this function. The existence of a local maximum is assumed to decide when the spacelike surface must be totally umbilical, deriving a Liebmann type result. Two remarkable families of examples of spacelike surfaces in a lightcone are explicitly constructed. Finally, several results which involve the first eigenvalue of the Laplace operator of a compact spacelike surface in a lightcone are obtained.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.4589v1