BERTRAND CURVES IN NON-FLAT 3-DIMENSIONAL (RIEMANNIAN OR LORENTZIAN) SPACE FORMS

Let $\mathbb{M}^3_q(c)$ denote the 3-dimensional space form of index $q=0,1$, and constant curvature $c{\neq}0$. A curve ${\alpha}$ immersed in $\mathbb{M}^3_q(c)$ is said to be a Bertrand curve if there exists another curve ${\beta}$ and a one-to-one correspondence between ${\alpha}$ and ${\beta}$ such that both curves have common principal normal geodesics at corresponding points. We obtain characterizations for both the cases of non-null curves and null curves. For non-null curves our theorem formally agrees with the classical one: non-null Bertrand curves in $\mathbb{M}^3_q(c)$ correspond with curves for which there exist two constants ${\lambda}{\neq}0$ and ${\mu}$ such that ${\lambda}{\kappa}+{\mu}{\tau}=1$, where ${\kappa}$ and ${\tau}$ stand for the curvature and torsion of the curve. As a consequence, non-null helices in $\mathbb{M}^3_q(c)$ are the only twisted curves in $\mathbb{M}^3_q(c)$ having infinite non-null Bertrand conjugate curves. In the case of null curves in the 3-dimensional Lorentzian space forms, we show that a null curve is a Bertrand curve if and only if it has non-zero constant second Frenet curvature. In the particular case where null curves are parametrized by the pseudo-arc length parameter, null helices are the only null Bertrand curves.