A finiteness result in the free boundary value problem for minimal surfaces (Q1082605)

The free boundary problem under consideration is the following: Given a compact body M in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) with boundary \(\partial M\) and a closed Jordan curve \(\Gamma\) in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\sim \partial M\) which is not contractible in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\sim \partial M\) one seeks a surface of minimal (or stationary) area in the class of all disc type surfaces contained in M whose boundary curve lies on \(\partial M\) and whose boundary curve is linked with \(\Gamma\). A body M in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) is termed H-convex if the inward mean curvature of \(\partial M\) is everywhere non-negative. The main result of this paper is that if a compact analytic H-convex body M in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 3\) which is not simply connected admits infinitely many minimizing solutions to the free boundary problem, then it must be homeomorphic to a solid torus; indeed, the set of all solutions can be represented as an analytic \(S^ 1\)-family of minimal embeddings F(\(\zeta\),\(\cdot):D\to M\) where D is the closed unit disc in \({\mathbb{R}}^ 2\) and the map \(F: S^ 1\times D\to M\) is an analytic diffeomorphism. The minimizing maps giving the disc type solutions are conformal harmonic maps which map int(D) to int(M), the H-convexity being used here to insure only the boundary of the surface touches \(\partial M\). The maps are normalized by requiring f(0)\(\in \Gamma\). The basis for the proof is the compactness of the set of minimizing maps which is obtained by showing the existence of uniform bounds for derivatives of minimizing maps. Another essential ingredient of the proof is an inverse function theorem argument.