Scherk-Type Capillary Graphs

This paper concerns the regularity of a capillary graph (the meniscus profile of liquid in a cylindrical tube) over a corner domain of angle α. By giving an explicit construction of minimal surface solutions previously shown to exist (Indiana Univ. Math. J. 50 (2001), no. 1, 411–441) we clarify two outstanding questions. Solutions are constructed in the case α = π/2 for contact angle data (γ₁, γ₂) = (γ, π − γ) with 0 < γ < π. The solutions given with |γ − π/2| < π/4 are the first known solutions that are not C² up to the corner. This shows that the best known regularity (C^{1, ∈}) is the best possible in some cases. Specific dependence of the H?lder exponent on the contact angle for our examples is given. Solutions with γ = π/4 have continuous, but horizontal, normal vector at the corners in accordance with results of Tam (Pacific J. Math. 124 (1986), 469–482). It is shown that our examples are C^{0, β} up to and including the corner for any β < 1. Solutions with |γ − π/2| > π/4 have a jump discontinuity at the corner. This kind of behavior was suggested by numerical work of Concus and Finn (Microgravity sci. technol. VII/2 (1994), 152–155) and Mittelmann and Zhu (Microgravity sci. technol. IX/1 (1996), 22–27). Our explicit construction, however, allows us to investigate the solutions quantitatively. For example, the trace of these solutions, excluding the jump discontinuity, is C^2/3.