On Wintgen ideal surfaces

Abstract: Wintgen proved in [P. Wintgen, Sur l'in\'egalit\'e de Chen-Willmore, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 288 (1979), 993--995] that the Gauss curvature $K$ and the normal curvature $K<sup>D$ of a surface in the Euclidean 4-space $E<sup>4$ satisfy $K+|K^D|\leq H<sup>2,$ where $H<sup>2$ is the squared mean curvature. A surface $M$ in $\E4$ is called a {Wintgen ideal} surface if it satisfies the equality case of the inequality identically. Wintgen ideal surfaces in $E<sup>4$ form an important family of surfaces; namely, surfaces with circular ellipse of curvature. In this paper, we provide a brief survey on some old and recent results on Wintgen ideal surfaces and more generally Wintgen ideal submanifolds in definite and indefinite real space forms.