Calibrations and the size of Grassmann faces

Summary In the past fifteen years or so, convex geometry and the theory of calibrations have provided a deeper understanding of the behavior and singular structure ofm-dimensional area-minimizing surfaces inR ⁿ . Calibrations correspond to faces of the GrassmannianG(m,R ⁿ ) of orientedm-planes inR ⁿ , viewed as a compact submanifold of the exterior algebra ^m R ⁿ . Large faces typically provide many examples of area-minimizing surfaces. This paper studies the sizes of such faces. It also considers integrands more general than area. One result implies that form-dimensional surfaces inR ⁿ , with 2 m n – 2, for any integrand , there are -minimizing surfaces with interior singularities.