Geodesic Universal Molecules

The first phase of TreeMaker, a well-known method for origami design, decomposes a planar polygon (the “paper”) into regions. If some region is not convex, TreeMaker indicates it with an error message and stops. Otherwise, a second phases is invoked which computes a crease pattern called a “universal molecule”. In this paper we introduce and study geodesic universal molecules, which also work with non-convex polygons and thus extend the applicability of the TreeMaker method. We characterize the family of disk-like surfaces, crease patterns and folded states produced by our generalized algorithm. They include non-convex polygons drawn on the surface of an intrinsically flat piecewise-linear surface which have self-overlap when laid open flat, as well as surfaces with negative curvature at a boundary vertex.     

Schwarz operators of minimal surfaces spanning polygonal boundary curves

This paper examines the Schwarz operator A and its relatives Ȧ, Ā and Ǡ that are assigned to a minimal surface X which maps consequtive arcs of the boundary of its parameter domain onto the straight lines which are determined by pairs P _j , P _j+1 of two adjacent vertices of some simple closed polygon . In this case X possesses singularities in those boundary points which are mapped onto the vertices of the polygon Γ. Nevertheless it is shown that A and its closure Ā have essentially the same properties as the Schwarz operator assigned to a minimal surface which spans a smooth boundary contour. This result is used by the author to prove in [Jakob, Finiteness of the set of solutions of Plateau’s problem for polygonal boundary curves. I.H.P. Analyse Non-lineaire (in press)] the finiteness of the number of immersed stable minimal surfaces which span an extreme simple closed polygon Γ, and in [Jakob, Local boundedness of the set of solutions of Plateau’s problem for polygonal boundary curves (in press)] even the local boundedness of this number under sufficiently small perturbations of Γ.     

Affine minimal hypersurfaces of rotation

We give a complete list of affine minimal surfaces inA ³ with Euclidean rotational symmetry, completing the treatise given in [1] and prove that these surfaces have maximal affine surface area within the class of all affine surfaces of rotation satisfying suitable boundary conditions. Besides we show that for rotationally symmetric locally strongly convex affine minimal hypersurfaces inA ⁿ ,n4, the second variation of the affine surface area is negative definite under certain conditions on the meridian.     

Geodesics in minimal surfaces

Abstract—In this paper, we consider connected minimal surfaces in R³ with isothermal coordinates and with a family of geodesic coordinates curves, these surfaces will be called GICM-surfaces. We give a classification of the GICM-surfaces. This class of minimal surfaces includes the catenoid, the helicoid and Enneper’s surface. Also, we show that one family of this class of minimal surfaces has at least one closed geodesic and one 1-periodic family of this class has finite total curvature. As application we show other characterization of catenoid and helicoid. Finally, we show that the class of GICM-surfaces coincides with the class of minimal surfaces whose the geodesic curvature k _g ¹ and k _g ² of the coordinates curves satisfy αk _g ¹ + βk _g ² = 0, α, β ∈ R.     

Evolution of nonparametric surfaces with speed depending on curvature II. The mean curvature case

We consider an evolution which starts as a flow of smooth surfaces in nonparametric form propagating in space with normal speed equal to the mean curvature of the current surface. The boundaries of the surfaces are assumed to remain fixed. G. Huisken has shown that if the boundary of the domain over which this flow is considered satisfies the “mean curvature” condition of H. Jenkins and J. Serrin (that is, the boundary of the domain is convex “in the mean”) then the corresponding initial boundary value problem with Dirichlet boundary data and smooth initial data admits a smooth solution for all time. In this paper we consider the case of arbitrary domains with smooth boundaries not necessarily satisfying the condition of Jenkins-Serrin. In this case, even if the flow starts with smooth initial data and homogeneous Dirichlet boundary data, singularities may develop in finite time at the boundary of the domain and the solution will not satisfy the boundary condition. We prove, however, existence of solutions that are smooth inside the domain for all time and become smooth up to the boundary after elapsing of a sufficiently long period of time. From that moment on such solutions assume the boundary values in the classical sense. We also give sufficient conditions that guarantee the existence of classical solutions for all time t ≧ 0. In addition, we establish estimates of the rate at which solutions tend to zero as t → ∞.     

Stabilität Mehrfach Zusammenhängender Minimalflächen

Multiply connected minimal surfaces of genus 0 with only simple interior branch points, for which the corresponding boundary value problem $$\Delta h - K|x_z |^2 h = 0; h_{|\partial \Omega } = 0$$ (K is the Gauss curvature and x_z is the complex gradient of the surface x) is uniquely solvable and which have the property, that the condition K|x_z|²≠0 holds in the branch points, are always isolated and stable solutions of the Plateau problem, corresponding to their boundary curves. To achieve these results one has to consider the conformal type as a variable. We give a method to perform the variation of the conformal type for holomorphic functions. Using the Weierstrass representation we thus obtain a differentiable structure on the set of multiply connected minimal surfaces. We find interesting connections between the classical Riemann-Hilbert problem and Fredholm properties of a projection operator on this manifold.     

Contre-exemple à une caractérisation conjecturée de la sphère

It has long been conjectured that a closed convex surface of class C₊² whose principal curvatures K₁, K₂ satisfy the inequality (K₁−c)(K₂−c)≤0 with some constant c, must be a sphere. Partial results have been obtained by A.D. Aleksandrov, H.F. Münzner and D. Koutroufiotis.We reformulate the conjecture in terms of hedgehogs and we give a counter-example. Besides, we prove the conjecture for surfaces of constant width and give a new proof for analytic surfaces.     

On the Gauss Map of Minimal Graphs

We consider graphs of solutions to the minimal surface equation which are unbounded over subarcs of the domain boundary. An extensive study of such surfaces was made by Jenkins and Serrin. In this note, properties of the Gauss map are studied.     

A generalization of Rado's Theorem for almost graphical boundaries

In this paper, we prove a generalization of Rado's Theorem, a fundamental result of minimal surface theory, which says that minimal surfaces over a convex domain with graphical boundaries must be disks which are themselves graphical. We will show that, for a minimal surface of any genus, whose boundary is ``almost graphical' in some sense, that the surface must be graphical once we move sufficiently far from the boundary.     

Minimality of planes in normed spaces

We prove that a region in a two-dimensional affine subspace of a normed space V has the least 2-dimensional Hausdorff measure among all compact surfaces with the same boundary. Furthermore, the 2-dimensional Hausdorff area density admits a convex extension to Λ² V. The proof is based on a (probably) new inequality for the Euclidean area of a convex centrally-symmetric polygon.     

A polygon is determined by its angles

We study the problem of reconstructing a simple polygon from angles measured at the vertices of the polygon. We assume that at each vertex v a sensing device returns a list of angles α₁,α₂,…, where αi is the angle between the i-th and the (i+1)-th vertices visible to v in counterclockwise (ccw) order starting with the ccw neighbor of v along the boundary. We prove that the angle measurements at all vertices of a simple polygon together with the order of the vertices along the boundary uniquely determine the polygon (up to similarity). In addition, we give an algorithm for reconstructing the polygon from this information in polynomial time.     

Steiner polygons in the Steiner problem

A polygon, whose vertices are points in a given setA ofn points, is defined to be a Steiner polygon ofA if all Steiner minimal trees forA lie in it. Cockayne first found that a Steiner polygon can be obtained by repeatedly deleting triangles from the boundary of the convex hull ofA. We generalize this concept and give a method to construct Steiner polygons by repeatedly deletingk-gons,k n. We also prove the uniqueness of Steiner polygons obtained by our method.     

A proof of Coleman's conjecture

Almost thirty years ago Coleman made a conjecture that for any convex lattice polygon with v vertices, g (g?1) interior lattice points and b boundary lattice points we have b?2g-v+10. In this note we give a proof of the conjecture. We also aim to describe all convex lattice polygons for which the bound b=2g-v+10 is attained.     

An inequality on the edge lengths of triangular meshes

We give a short proof of the following geometric inequality: for any two triangular meshes A and B of the same polygon C, if the number of vertices in A is at most the number of vertices in B, then the maximum length of an edge in A is at least the minimum distance between two vertices in B. Here the vertices in each triangular mesh include the vertices of the polygon and possibly additional Steiner points. The polygon must not be self-intersecting but may be non-convex and may even have holes. This inequality is useful for many purposes, especially in proving performance guarantees of mesh generation algorithms. For example, a weaker corollary of the inequality confirms a conjecture of Aurenhammer et al. [Theoretical Computer Science 289 (2002) 879-895] concerning triangular meshes of convex polygons, and improves the approximation ratios of their mesh generation algorithm for minimizing the maximum edge length and the maximum triangle perimeter of a triangular mesh.     

Finiteness of the set of solutions of Plateau's problem for polygonal boundary curves

It is proved that for a simple, closed, extreme polygon  Γ⊂R³$\Gamma \subset {\mathbb{R}}^3$ every immersed, stable minimal surface spanning Γ is an isolated point of the set of all minimal surfaces spanning Γ   w.r.t. the C⁰$C^0$-topology. Since the subset of immersed, stable minimal surfaces spanning Γ is shown to be closed in the compact set of all minimal surfaces spanning Γ, this proves in particular that Γ can bound only finitely many immersed, stable minimal surfaces.     

Convex drawings of graphs with non-convex boundary constraints

In this paper, we study a new problem of convex drawing of planar graphs with non-convex boundary constraints, and call a drawing in which every inner-facial cycle is drawn as a convex polygon an inner-convex drawing. It is proved that every triconnected plane graph with the boundary fixed with a star-shaped polygon whose kernel has a positive area admits an inner-convex drawing. We also prove that every four-connected plane graph whose boundary is fixed with a crown-shaped polygon admits an inner-convex drawing. We present linear time algorithms to construct inner-convex drawings for both cases.     

Gradient estimate in terms of a Hilbert-like distance,for minimal surfaces and Chaplygin gas

We consider a quasilinear elliptic boundary value-problem with homogenenous Dirichlet condition. The data are a convex planar domain. The gradient estimate is needed to ensure the uniform ellipticity, before applying regularity theory. We establish this estimate in terms of a distance, which is equivalent to the Hilbert metric.

This fills the proof of existence and uniqueness of a solution to this BVP (boundary-value problem), when the domain is only convex but not strictly, for instance if it is a polygon.     

Rate of Approximation of Regular Convex Bodies by?Convex Algebraic Level Surfaces

We consider the problem of the approximation of regular convex bodies in ℝ ^d by level surfaces of convex algebraic polynomials. Hammer (in Mathematika 10, 67–71, 1963) verified that any convex body in ℝ ^d can be approximated by a level surface of a convex algebraic polynomial. In Jaen J. Approx. 1, 97–109, 2009 and subsequently in J. Approx. Theory 162, 628–637, 2010 a quantitative version of Hammer’s approximation theorem was given by showing that the order of approximation of convex bodies by convex algebraic level surfaces of degree n is \frac1n\frac{1}{n}. Moreover, it was also shown that whenever the convex body is not regular (that is, there exists a point on its boundary at which the convex body possesses two distinct supporting hyperplanes), then \frac1n\frac{1}{n} is essentially the sharp rate of approximation. This leads to the natural question whether this rate of approximation can be improved further when the convex body is regular. In this paper we shall give an affirmative answer to this question. It turns out that for regular convex bodies a o(1/n) rate of convergence holds. In addition, if the body satisfies the condition of C ²-smoothness the rate of approximation is O(\frac1n²)O(\frac{1}{n^{2}}).     

The Hele-Shaw problem with surface tension in a half-plane: A model problem

Consider the Hele-Shaw problem with surface tension in the half-plane {y₁>0} when at time t=0 the domain Ω(t) lies partly on the line y₁=0, and partly in {y₁>0}. In order to establish existence of a solution to this free boundary problem we need to study the (linear) model problem when the Ω(t) is a fixed angular domain. In this paper we consider this model problem and establish existence of a solution satisfying sharp weighted Hölder estimates. These estimates will be used in subsequent work to solve the full Hele-Shaw problem.     

Tight contact structures on some bounded Seifert manifolds with minimal convex boundary

We classify positive tight contact structures, up to isotopy fixing the boundary, on the manifolds N=M(D ²;r ₁,r ₂) with minimal convex boundary of slope s and Giroux torsion 0 along ?N, where r ₁,r ₂∈(0,1)∩?, in the following cases: (1) s∈(?∞,0)∪[2,+∞); (2) s∈[0,1) and r ₁,r ₂∈[1/2,1); (3) s∈[1,2) and $r_{1},r_{2}\in \left(0,\frac{1}{2}\right)$ ; (4) s=∞ and $r_{1}=r_{2}=\frac{1}{2}$ . We also classify positive tight contact structures, up to isotopy fixing the boundary, on $M \left(D^{2};\frac{1}{2},\frac{1}{2}\right)$ with minimal convex boundary of arbitrary slope and Giroux torsion greater than 0 along the boundary.