TITLE: A question about embedding hyperbolic space onto pseudosphere
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: I have a difficulty with hyperbolic geometry. 
Let $\mathbb{H}^{2}$ be a 2-dimensional hyperbolic plane.
(i.e., upper half plane in $\mathbb{R}^{2}$ with a metric $\frac{ds}{y}$)
(or, upper half plane in $\mathbb{C}$ with a metric $\frac{|dz|}{\textrm{Im}(z)}$ ) 
You may have heard about pseudosphere in $\mathbb{R}^{3}$. Let's denote the half-pseudosphere by $P$
This can be obtained by glueing both side($x=0$ and $x=2\pi$ parts) of 
$\left[(x,y)\in\mathbb{H}^{2} : 0\leq x\leq 2\pi, y>1 \right]$
Denoting this quotient space by $A$(Note that $A$ is homeomorphic to a cylinder), we can now get a "globally isometrically embedding" map $\rho:A \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{3}$ with $\rho(A)=P$
To be specific, $\rho(x,y) = (t-\tanh(t), \textrm{sech}(t)\
\cos(x), \textrm{sech}(t)\sin(x))$ where $t=\textrm{arccosh}(y)$
Now the question I have is following 
: Is there another possible (global and isometric)embedding $\rho$ from $A$ into $\mathbb{R}^{3}$ ? 
Actually I'm interested in $\rho(A)$ and by calculating, one can easily find that if $\rho(A)$ is a "surface of revolution", then it should be $P$(up to isometry of $\mathbb{R}^3$"
Thus I'm looking for $\rho(A)$ which is different from a surface of revolution.
Any idea?

REPLY [7 votes]: You should be looking at the theory of Bäcklund transformations for surfaces of Gaussian curvature $K=-1$.  There is a large literature on this, and there are many examples of pseudospherical immersions that are not surfaces of revolution.  You should especially look at the work of Chuu-Lian Terng in this area.  She, together with her husband, Richard Palais, have developed this theory quite a bit in the past 30 years, and they have some excellent graphics for these surfaces.  Whether they can answer your specific question about isometrically embedding your particular domain $A$ into $\mathbb{R}^3$, I don't know, but that would be a good place to start.