A variational approach to the regularity of minimal surfaces of annulus type in Riemannian manifolds

Given two Jordan curves in a Riemannian manifold, a minimal surface of annulus type bounded by these curves is described as the harmonic extension of a critical point of some functional (the Dirichlet integral) in a certain space of boundary parametrizations. The H2,2-regularity of the minimal surface of annulus type will be proved by applying the critical points theory and Morrey's growth condition.     

A sufficient condition for a set of calibrated surfaces to be area-minimizing under diffeomorphisms

We extend Choe’s idea in [1] to nonpolyhedral calibrated surfaces and give some examples of polyhedral sets over right prisms and nonpolyhedral calibrated surfaces. Received: 4 October 2004     

Embedded minimal annuli solving an exterior problem

Given a compact, strictly convex body in ³ and a closed Jordan curve ³ satisfying several additional assumptions, the existence of a parametric, annulus type minimal surface is proved, which parametrizes along one boundary component, has a free boundary onX along the other boundary component, and which stays in ³. As a consequence of this and a reasoning developed by W. H. Meeks and S. -T. Yau we find an embedded minimal surface with these properties. Another application is the existence of an embedded minimal surface with a flat end, free boundary onX and controlled topology.This article was processed by the author using the LATEX style filepljourlm from Springer-Verlag.     

A method to exclude branch points of minimal surfaces

The central problem of this paper is to exclude boundary branch points of minimal surfaces. The method consists in showing that the third derivative of the Dirichlet energy is negative along well-chosen paths in admissible Jacobi field directions, if a “Schüffler condition” is satisfied. Received July 21, 1997 / Accepted October 3, 1997     

Complete stickiness of nonlocal minimal surfaces for small values of the fractional parameter

In this paper, we consider the asymptotic behavior of the fractional mean curvature when $s\to 0^{+}$. Moreover, we deal with the behavior of s-minimal surfaces when the fractional parameter $s\in (0,1)$ is small, in a bounded and connected open set with $C^2$ boundary $\mathrm{\Omega }?{\mathbb{R}}^n$. We classify the behavior of s-minimal surfaces with respect to the fixed exterior data (i.e. the s-minimal set fixed outside of Ω). So, for s small and depending on the data at infinity, the s-minimal set can be either empty in Ω, fill all Ω, or possibly develop a wildly oscillating boundary.Also, we prove the continuity of the fractional mean curvature in all variables, for $s\in [0,1]$. Using this, we see that as the parameter s varies, the fractional mean curvature may change sign.     

The spiral minimal surfaces and their Legendre and Weierstrass representations

A class of spiral minimal surfaces in E³ is constructed using a symmetry reduction. The reduction leads to a cubic-nonlinear ODE whose phase portrait is described using an auxiliary Riccati's equation and the Warzewski topological principle for its solutions. The new surfaces are invariant with respect to the composition of rotation and dilation. The solutions are obtained in parametric form through the Legendre and the Weierstrass representations, and also their asymptotic behaviour is described.     

Variational characterization for eigenvalues of Dirac operators

In this paper we give two different variational characterizations for the eigenvalues of H+V where H denotes the free Dirac operator and V is a scalar potential. The first one is a min-max involving a Rayleigh quotient. The second one consists in minimizing an appropriate nonlinear functional. Both methods can be applied to potentials which have singularities as strong as the Coulomb potential. Received June 5, 1998 / Accepted June 11, 1999     

Asymptotically linear elliptic boundary value problems

We study semilinear problems in which the nonlinear term has different asymptotic behavior at ± with the limits (1.2) spanning a finite number of eigenvalues of the linear operator.Research supported in part by an NSF grant.     

Uniqueness of least area surfaces in the 3-torus

Given any -periodic metric g on and a plane through the origin, Bangert [4] shows that there exists a properly embedded surface homeomorphic to which is homotopically area-minimizing w.r.t. g, lies in a strip of bounded width around P, and does not have self-intersections when projected to the 3-torus . For the set of such surfaces, we show the following uniqueness theorems: If P is irrational, i.e., is not spanned by vectors in , the action of on by translations has a unique minimal set. If P is totally irrational, i.e., , then the surfaces in are pairwise disjoint. Received: 8 July 1999 / In final form: 14 February 2000 / Published online: 25 June 2001     

The calibration method for the Mumford-Shah functional and free-discontinuity problems

We present a minimality criterion for the Mumford-Shah functional, and more generally for non convex variational integrals on SBV which couple a surface and a bulk term. This method provides short and easy proofs for several minimality results. Received: 29 November 2001 / Published online: 29 April 2002     

On the free boundary of surfaces with bounded mean curvature: the non-perpendicular case

H?lder continuity up to the free boundary is proved for minimizing solutions if they meet the supporting surface in an angle which is bounded away from zero. The problem is localized by proving the continuity of the distance function, a result which is also true for stationary points. Received: 14 April 1998     

Cauchy integrals,Calderón projectors,and Toeplitz operators on uniformly rectifiable domains

We develop properties of Cauchy integrals associated to a general class of first-order elliptic systems of differential operators D on a bounded, uniformly rectifiable (UR) domain Ω in a Riemannian manifold M. We show that associated to such Cauchy integrals are analogues of Hardy spaces of functions on Ω annihilated by D  , and we produce projections, of Calderón type, onto subspaces of L^p(∂Ω)$L^p(\partial \Omega )$ consisting of boundary values of elements of such Hardy spaces. We consider Toeplitz operators associated to such projections and study their index properties. Of particular interest is a “cobordism argument,” which often enables one to identify the index of a Toeplitz operator on a rough UR domain with that of one on a smoothly bounded domain.     

Contact symmetries of the Helmholtz form

In this paper, vector fields which are symmetries of the contact ideal are studied. It is shown that contact symmetries of the Helmholtz form transform a dynamical form to a dynamical form which is variational (i.e. comes as the Euler-Lagrange form from a Lagrangian). The case of dynamical forms representing first-order classes in the variational sequence is analysed in detail, which means, by the variational sequence theory, that systems of ordinary differential equations of order ?3 are concerned.     

Homologically versus homotopically area minimizing surfaces in 3-manifolds

We construct a Riemannian metric on the 3-torus such that no closed surface minimizing area in its homology class is incompressible, i.e., each such surface is of genus greater than one. In particular, for such a Riemannian metric, the homotopically area minimizing 2-tori constructed in [5] do not minimize area in their homology classes. The example is easily generalized to arbitrary 3-manifolds. The constructed Riemannian metric can be chosen to be conformally equivalent to any arbitrary given one. Received September 4, 1998 / Accepted October 23, 1998     

The relative isoperimetric inequality outside convex domains in R<Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Superscript>

We prove that the area of a hypersurface Σ which traps a given volume outside a convex domain C in Euclidean space R ⁿ is bigger than or equal to the area of a hemisphere which traps the same volume on one side of a hyperplane. Further, when C has smooth boundary ∂C, we show that equality holds if and only if Σ is a hemisphere which meets ∂C orthogonally.     

Complex Ginzburg-Landau equations in high dimensions and codimension two area minimizing currents

There is an obvious topological obstruction for a finite energy unimodular harmonic extension of a S ¹-valued function defined on the boundary of a bounded regular domain of R ⁿ . When such extensions do not exist, we use the Ginzburg-Landau relaxation procedure. We prove that, up to a subsequence, a sequence of Ginzburg-Landau minimizers, as the coupling parameter tends to infinity, converges to a unimodular harmonic map away from a codimension-2 minimal current minimizing the area within the homology class induced from the S ¹-valued boundary data. The union of this harmonic map and the minimal current is the natural generalization of the harmonic extension. Received December 3, 1998 / final version received May 10, 1999     

Wave breaking for the periodic weakly dissipative Dullin-Gottwald-Holm equation

In this paper, we consider the periodic weakly dissipative Dullin-Gottwald-Holm equation. The present work is mainly concerned with blow-up phenomena for the Cauchy problem for this new kind of equation. We apply the optimal constant to give sufficient conditions via an appropriate integral form of the initial data, which guarantee the finite-time singularity formation for the corresponding solution.