Minimal surfaces near short geodesics in hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q783198)

Let \(M\) be a compact orientable \(3\)-manifold. Denote by \(\mathcal{O}\) and \(\mathcal{U}\) the collection of all smooth orientable and non-orientable embedded closed minimal surfaces in \(M\), respectively. The authors in the previous paper [J. Differ. Geom. 106, 283--316 (2017; Zbl 1404.53078)] defined \[ \mathcal{A}_1(M)=\inf (\{|\Sigma |, \Sigma \in \mathcal{O}\}\cup \{2|\Sigma |, \Sigma \in \mathcal{U}\}), \] which gives a lower bound for the area of any minimal surface in \(M\). The authors proved that \(\mathcal{A}_1(M)\) can be realized by a minimal surface in \(M\). In this paper, by investigating the behavior of a minimal surface intersecting a neighborhood of a short geodesic, the authors study the continuity property of the functional \(\mathcal{A}_1\) with respect to the geometric convergence of hyperbolic manifolds. Let \(M_i\to \overline{M}\) be a convergent sequence of hyperbolic cusp manifolds. By studying minimal surfaces near short geodesics, the authors find that the minimal surface \(\Sigma_i\) that realizes \(\mathcal{A}_1(M_i)\) can not enter into a tubular neighborhood of a short geodesic, thus the compactness result of \textit{B. Sharp} [J. Differential Geom., 106, 317--339 (2017; Zbl 0577.53044)] can be applied, and the authors prove that \(\mathcal{A}_1\) is lower semi-continuous. The authors also prove that \(\mathcal{A}_1(\overline{M})\) is continuous if it is not realized by the area of a stable-unstable separating minimal surface.