Existence of proper minimal surfaces of arbitrary topological type (Q436178)

This paper proves new results of a remarkable interest in the field of minimal surfaces. It responds to a conjecture of Calabi and Yau, regarding existence of a complete immersed minimal surface in a bounded domain of \(\mathbb R^3\). Nadirashvili provided the first example of a complete, bounded, immersed minimal surface in \(\mathbb R^3\). Several other significant results followed. The current paper proves that every open surface can be properly minimally immersed into certain domains \(D\) of \(\mathbb R^3\) as a complete surface. These domains include: \(\mathbb R^3\), all convex domains, and all bounded domains with smooth boundary. Moreover, the authors prove the following very important theorem: If \(D\) is a smooth bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^3\) and \(M\) is an open surface, then there exists a complete, proper minimal immersion of \(M\) into \(D\) such as the limit sets of distinct ends of \(M\) are disjoint.