Gluing Dupin cyclides along circles, finding a cyclide given three contact conditions.

2013

Dupin cyclides form a 9-dimensional set of surfaces which are, from the viewpoint of differential geometry, the simplest after planes and spheres. We prove here that, given three oriented contact conditions, there is in general no Dupin cyclide satisfying them, but if the contact conditions belongs to a codimension one subset, then there is a one-parameter family of solutions, which are all tangent along a curve determined by the three contact conditions.