Classification of flexible Kokotsakis polyhedra with quadrangular base

摘要

A Kokotsakis polyhedron with quadrangular base is a neighborhood of a quadrilateral in a quad surface. Generically, a Kokotsakis polyhedron is rigid. In this article we classify flexible Kokotsakis polyhedra with quadrangular bases. The analysis is based on the fact that any pair of adjacent dihedral angles of a Kokotsakis polyhedron is related by a biquadratic equation. This results in a diagram of branched covers of complex projective lines by elliptic curves. A polyhedron is flexible if and only if all repeated fiber products of coverings meet in the same Riemann surface, which is then the configuration space of the polyhedron.