Integration – How to Calculate the Surface Area of a Torus

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One can generate a torus as follows: $\vec{g}=((b+a\cos u)\cos v, (b+a\cos u)\sin v, a \sin u)$. To find its area, we can use a surface integral of the form $S=\iint_{D_{uv}} {\lVert \frac{∂g}{∂u} \times \frac{∂g}{∂v} \rVert \, du \, dv}$. However, in the case of torus the integral becomes seemingly unnecessarily tedious to evaluate. Are there nicer approaches to evaluating the surface area using a surface integral?

Best Answer

Another way to proceed would be by writing out the surface integral using differential forms. To this end we need to set up a chart and a coordinate system on the Torus. Fortunately we need only one chart and the coordinate system can be made global (using the coordinates already introduced in the question $u,v$), the surface integral will be

$$ S=\int_{M} ab~ du \wedge dv $$ The integration runs over the coordinate range of the open cover $M=T^2$, that is $u \in [0, 2\pi], ~v \in [0, 2\pi]$ leading to

$$ S= ab \int_0^{2\pi}du \int_0^{2\pi} dv = 4\pi^2 ab $$

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