The geometry of periodic minimal surfaces (Q1312812)

The authors demonstrate relationships between the topology of periodic minimal surfaces and its global geometry. The main theorem is: A properly embedded minimal surface in a complete nonsimply connected flat three- manifold has finite total curvature if and only if it has finite topology. This result has topological and analytical consequences, for example the following uniqueness theorem can be deduced: The plane and the helicoid are the only properly embedded simply connected minimal surfaces in \(\mathbb{R}^ 3\) with infinite symmetry group.