A well known consequence of the Wirtinger inequality is that in a Kaehler surface a holomorphic curve is an area minimizer in its homology class. In light of this result it is natural, given a Kaehler surface, to investigate the relation between area minimizers and complex curves. When the Kaehler surface is a K3 surface this problem takes on a new character. A Ricci flat (Calabi-Yau) metric on a K3 surface X is hyperkaehler in the sense that there is a two-sphere of complex structures, called the hyperkaehler line, each of which is compatible with the metric. A minimizer of area among surfaces representing a homology class αconsists of a sum of branched immersed surfaces and it is then reasonable to ask whether each surface in this collection is holomorphic for some complex structure on the hyperkaehler line. Though this is true for many homology classes and there is other evidence that makes this pausible, in this paper we show that there is an integral homology class αand a hyperkaehler metric g such that no area minimizer of αhas this property.
This paper is a continuation of our paper about boundary rigidity and filling minimality of metrics close to flat ones. We show that compact regions close to a hyperbolic one are boundary distance rigid and strict minimal fillings. We also provide a more invariant view on the approach used in the above mentioned paper.
Let $g=(g_{ij})$ be a complete Riemmanian metric on $\R^2$ with finite total area and $I_g=\inf_γI(γ)$ with $I(γ)=L(γ)(A_{in}(γ)^{-1}+A_{out}(γ)^{-1})$ where $γ$ is any closed simple curve in $\R^2$, $L(γ)$ is the length of $γ$, $A_{in}(γ)$ and $A_{out}(γ)$ are the area of the regions inside and outside $γ$ respectively, with respect to the metric $g$. We prove the existence of a minimizer for $I_g$. As a corollary we obtain a new proof for the existence of a minimizer for $I_{g(t)}$ for any $0<t<T$ when the metric $g(t)=g_{ij}(\cdot,t)=uδ_{ij}$ is the maximal solution of the Ricci flow equati…
We show the existence of a smooth spherical surface minimizing the Willmore functional subject to an area constraint in a compact Riemannian three-manifold, provided the area is small enough. Moreover, we classify complete surfaces of Willmore type with positive mean curvature in Riemannian three-manifolds.
We show that in the setting of proper metric spaces one obtains a solution of the classical two-dimensional Plateau problem by minimizing the energy, as in the classical case, once a definition of area (in the sense of convex geometry) has been chosen appropriately. We prove the quasi-convexity of this new definition of area. Under the assumption of a quadratic isoperimetric inequality we establish regularity results for energy minimizers and improve Hoelder exponents of some area-minimizing discs.
In \cite{CHMY04}, we studied $p$-mean curvature and the associated $p$-minimal surfaces in the Heisenberg group from the viewpoint of PDE and differential geometry. In this paper, we look into the problem through the variational formulation. We study a generalized $p$-area and associated ($p$-) minimizers in general dimensions. We prove the existence and investigate the uniqueness of minimizers. Since this is reduced to solving a degenerate elliptic equation, we need to consider the effect of the singular set and this requires a careful study. We define the notion of weak solution and prove th…
We prove the existence of a continuous $BV$ minimizer with $C^{0}$ boundary value for the $p$-area (pseudohermitian or horizontal area) in a parabolically convex bounded domain. We extend the domain of the area functional from $BV$ functions to vector-valued measures. Our main purpose is to study the first and second variations of such a generalized area functional including the contribution of the singular part. By giving examples in Riemannian and pseudohermitian geometries, we illustrate several known results in a unified way. We show the contribution of the singular curve in the first and …
We study the uniqueness of generalized $p$-minimal surfaces in the Heisenberg group. The generalized $p$-area of a graph defined by $u$ reads $\int |\nabla u+\vec{F}| + Hu$. If $u$ and $v$ are two minimizers for the generalized $p$-area satisfying the same Dirichlet boundary condition, then we can only get $N_{\vec{F}}(u)$ $=$ $N_{\vec{F}}(v)$ (on the nonsingular set) where $N_{\vec{F}}(w)$ $:=$ $\frac{\nabla w+\vec{F}}{|\nabla w+\vec{F}|}.$ To conclude $u$ $=$ $v$ (or $\nabla u$ $=$ $\nabla v)$, it is not straightforward as in the Riemannian case, but requires some special argument in general…
Since the pioneering work of Canham and Helfrich, variational formulations involving curvature-dependent functionals, like the classical Willmore functional, have proven useful for shape analysis of biomembranes. We address minimizers of the Canham-Helfrich functional defined over closed surfaces enclosing a fixed volume and having fixed surface area. By restricting attention to axisymmetric surfaces, we prove the existence of global minimizers.
In this paper, we consider multi-valued graphs with a prescribed real analytic interface that minimize the Dirichlet energy. Such objects arise as a linearized model of area minimizing currents with real analytic boundaries and our main result is that their singular set is discrete in 2 dimensions. This confirms (and provides a first step to) a conjecture by B. White \cite{White97} that area minimizing $2$-dimensional currents with real analytic boundaries have a finite number of singularities. We also show that, in any dimension, Dirichlet energy-minimizers with a $C^1$ boundary interface are…
We develop a bubble tree construction and prove compactness results for $W^{2,2}$ branched conformal immersions of closed Riemann surfaces, with varying conformal structures whose limit may degenerate, in a compact Riemannian manifold with uniformly bounded areas and Willmore energies. The compactness property is applied to construct Willmore type surfaces in compact Riemannian manifolds. This includes (a) existence of a Willmore 2-sphere in ${\mathbb S}^n$ with at least 2 nonremovable singular points (b) existence of minimizers of the Willmore functional with prescribed area in a compact mani…
This paper introduces a geometrically constrained variational problem for the area functional. We consider the area restricted to the langrangian surfaces of a Kaehler surface, or, more generally, a symplectic 4-manifold with suitable metric, and study its critical points and in particular its minimizers. We apply this study to the problem of finding canonical representatives of the lagrangian homology (that part of the homology generated by lagrangian cycles).
We introduce a notion of generalized Willmore functionals motivated by the Hawking energy of General Relativity and bending energies of membranes. An example of a bending energy is discussed in detail. Using results of Y. Chen and J. Li, we present a compactness result for branched, immersed, haunted, stratified surface with bounded area and Willmore energy. This allows us to prove the existence of area constrained minimizers for generalized Willmore functionals in the class of haunted, branched, immersed bubble trees by direct minimization. Here a haunted, stratified surfaces are introduced, …
We prove a new inequality relating volume to length of closed geodesics on area minimizers for generic metrics on the complex projective plane. We exploit recent regularity results for area minimizers by Moore and White, and the Kronheimer--Mrowka proof of the Thom conjecture.
(NOTE: per referee comments, this article has been split; it is now superseded by "Existence of thread-wire minimizers" and "Near-wire thread-wire minimizers"; please see http://www.bkstephens.net.) Alt's thread problem asks for least-area surfaces bounding a fixed "wire" curve and a movable "thread" curve of length L. We conjecture that if the wire has finitely many maxima of curvature, then its Alt minimizers have finitely many surface components. We show that this conjecture reduces to controlling near-wire minimizers, and thus begin a three paper series to understand them. In this paper we…
We consider a Canham-Helfrich-type variational problem defined over closed surfaces enclosing a fixed volume and having fixed surface area. The problem models the shape of multiphase biomembranes. It consists of minimizing the sum of the Canham-Helfrich energy, in which the bending rigidities and spontaneous curvatures are now phase-dependent, and a line tension penalization for the phase interfaces. By restricting attention to axisymmetric surfaces and phase distributions, we extend our previous results for a single phase (arXiv:1202.1979) and prove existence of a global minimizer.
Given two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds $\mathcal{M},\mathcal{N}$, we prove a lower bound on the distortion of embeddings $\mathcal{M} \to \mathcal{N}$, in terms of the areas' discrepancy $V_{\mathcal{N}}/V_{\mathcal{M}}$, for a certain class of distortion functionals. For $V_{\mathcal{N}}/V_{\mathcal{M}} \ge 1/4$, homotheties, provided they exist, are the unique energy minimizing maps attaining the bound, while for $V_{\mathcal{N}}/V_{\mathcal{M}} \le 1/4$, there are non-homothetic minimizers. We characterize the maps attaining the bound, and construct explicit non-homothetic minimizers be…
We use a new approach that we call unification to prove that standard weighted double bubbles in $n$-dimensional Euclidean space minimize immiscible fluid surface energy, that is, surface area weighted by constants. The result is new for weighted area, and also gives the simplest known proof to date of the (unit weight) double bubble theorem. As part of the proof we introduce a striking new symmetry argument for showing that a minimizer must be a surface of revolution.
Let $M$ and $N$ be doubly connected Riemann surfaces with $\mathscr{C}^{1,α}$ boundaries and with nonvanishing conformal metrics $σ$ and $\wp$ respectively, and assume that $\wp$ is a smooth metric with bounded Gauss curvature $\mathcal{K}$ and finite area. Assume that ${\Ho}_ρ(M, N)$ is the class of all $\mathscr{W}^{1,2}$ bomeomorphisms between $M$ and $N$ and assume that $\mathcal{E}^\wp: \overline{\Ho}_ρ(M, N)\to \mathbf{R}$ is the Dirichlet-energy functional, where $\overline{\Ho}_ρ(M, N)$ is the closure of ${\Ho}_ρ(M, N)$ in $\mathscr{W}^{1,2}(M,N)$. By using a result of Iwaniec, Kovalev…
