(1) Instituto de Mathemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA), Estrada Dona Castorina 110, 22460 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil;(2) Departement de Mathématiques, Université de Paris VII, 2 Place Jussieu, 75251 Paris, Cedex 05, France
Abstract:
The helicoid and plane are the only known complete embedded minimal surfaces inR3 that are simply connected. We prove the helicoid and plane are the only surfaces of this type that have bounded curvature and meet each plane x3 = constant in (at most) one smooth connected curve.