Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2009
We use the principle of symmetric criticality to connect the Willmore variational problem for surfaces in a warped product space with base a circle, and the free elastica variational problem for curves on its fiber. In addition we obtain a rational oneparameter family of closed helices in the anti De Sitter 3-space which are critical points of the total squared curvature functional. This means they are free elasticae. Also they are spacelike; this allows us to construct a corresponding family of spacelike Willmore tori in a certain kind of spacetime close to the Robertson-Walker spaces.