The area minimizing problem in conformal cones. II (Q829103)

In this paper, the authors continue to study the area minimizing problem with prescribed boundary in a class of conformal cones similar to the one published by the authors in [J. Funct. Anal. 280, No. 3, Article ID 108827, 40 p. (2021; Zbl 1461.49056)]. If \(N\) is an \(n\)-dimensional open Riemannian manifold with a metric \(\sigma\), \(\mathbb{R}\) is the real line with the metric \(dr^2\), and \(\varphi(x)\) is a \(C^2\) positive function on \(N\), then \(M_\varphi=(N\times\mathbb{R},\varphi^2(x)(\sigma+dr^2))\) is called a conformal product manifold, and if \(\Omega\) is a \(C^2\) bounded domain with compact closure \(\overline\Omega\) in \(N\), then \(Q_\varphi=\Omega\times\mathbb{R}\) in \(M_\varphi\) is called a conformal cone. If \(\psi(x)\) is a \(C^1\) function on \(\partial\Omega\) and \(\Gamma\) is its graph in \(\partial\Omega\times\mathbb{R}\), then the area minimizing problem in a conformal cone \(Q_\varphi\) is to find an \(n\)-integer multiplicity current in \(\overline Q_\varphi\) to realize \[ \min\{\mathbb{M}(T);\ T\in\mathcal{G}\ \text{and}\ \partial T=\Gamma\}, \tag{\(*\)} \] where \(\mathbb{M}\) is the mass of integer multiplicity currents in \(M_\varphi\), and \(\mathcal{G}\) denotes the set of \(n\)-integer multiplicity currents with compact support in \(\overline{Q}_\varphi\), that is, for any \(T\in\mathcal{G}\), its support \(\text{spt}(T)\) is contained in \(\overline\Omega\times[a,b]\) for some finite numbers \(a < b\). If \(BV(W)\) is he set of all bounded variation functions on any open set \(W\), then a key concept for the study of the problem \((*)\) is an area functional in \(BV(W)\) defined as \( \mathfrak{F}_\varphi(u,W)=\sup\left\{\int_\Omega\{\varphi^n(x)h+u\,\text{div}(\varphi^n(x)X)\}\,d\,\text{vol}\right\} \) for \(h\in C_0(W)\), \(X\in T_0(W)\), and \(h^2+\langle X,X\rangle\le 1\), where \(d\text{vol}\) and \(\text{div}\) are the volume form and the divergence of \(N\), respectively, and \(C_0(W)\) and \(T_0(W)\) denote the set of smooth functions and vector fields with compact support in \(W\), respectively. If \(u\in C^1(W)\), then \(\mathfrak{F}_\varphi(u,W)\) is the area of the graph of \(u(x)\) in \(M_\varphi\). If \(\Omega\) is the \(C^2\) domain, \(\Omega'\) is a \(C^2\) domain in \(N\) satisfying \(\Omega\subset\!\subset\Omega'\), i.e., the closure of \(\Omega\) is a compact set in \(\Omega'\), and \(\psi(x)\in C^1(\Omega'\setminus\Omega)\), then the following minimizing problem: \[ \min\{\mathfrak{F}_\varphi(v,\Omega');\ v(x)\in BV(\Omega'), v(x)=\psi(x)\ \text{on}\ \Omega'\setminus\Omega\} \tag{\(**\)} \] plays an important role to solve \((*)\). If \(\Sigma\) is a minimal graph of \(u(x)\) in \(M_\varphi\) over \(\Omega\) with \(C^1\) boundary \(\psi(x)\) on \(\partial\Omega\), then the Dirichlet problem is defined as \[ \text{div}\!\left(\frac{D u}{\sqrt{1+|Du|^2}}\right)+n\left\langle D\log\varphi,\frac{D u}{\sqrt{1+|Du|^2}}\right\rangle=0 \tag{\(*\!*\!*\)} \] for \(x\in\Omega\), and \(u(x)=\psi(x)\) for \(x\in\partial\Omega\), where \(\psi(x)\) is a continuous function on \(\partial\Omega\) and div is the divergence of \(\Omega\). The key idea to solve \((*)\) is to establish the connection between the problem \((*)\), the area functional minimizing problem \((**)\), and the Dirichlet problem of minimal surface equations in \(M_\varphi\). If the mean curvature \(H\) of \(\partial\Omega\) satisfies \(H_{\partial\Omega}+n\langle\vec\gamma,D\log\varphi\rangle\ge 0\) on \(\partial\Omega\), where \(\vec\gamma\) is the outward normal vector of \(\partial\Omega\) and \(H_{\partial\Omega}= \text{div}(\vec{\gamma})\), then \(\Omega\) is called \(\varphi\)-mean convex. The authors show that if \(u(x)\) is the solution to the problem \((**)\), then \(T=\partial[\![U]\!]_{\overline{Q}_\varphi}\) solves the problem \((*)\) in \(M_\varphi\), where \(U\) is the subgraph of \(u(x)\) and \([\![U]\!]\) is the corresponding integer multiplicity current. As a direct application of this result is the Dirichlet problem of minimal surface equations in \(M_\varphi\). It is shown that if \(\Omega\) is \(\varphi\)-mean convex, then the Dirichlet problem \((*\!*\!*)\) with continuous boundary data has a unique solution in \(C^2(\Omega)\cap C(\overline\Omega)\). Finally, the authors consider the existence and uniqueness of local area minimizing integer multiplicity current in \(M_\varphi\) with infinity boundary \(\Gamma\) when \(\varphi(x)\) can be written as \(\varphi(d(x,\partial N))\) which goes to \(+\infty\) as \(d(x,\partial N)\to 0\) in \(N\), where \(N\) is a compact Riemannian manifold with \(C^2\) boundary and \(d\) is the distance function in \(N\). If \(N_r=\{x\in N;\ d(x,\partial N) > r\}\), then it is shown that if there is \(r_1\) such that for any \(r\in(0,r_1)\) \(N_r\) is \(\varphi\)-mean convex, then for any \(\psi(x)\in C(\partial N)\) and \(\Gamma=(x,\psi(x))\) there is a unique local area minimizing integer multiplicity current \(T\) with infinity boundary \(\Gamma\), and \(T\) is a minimal graph in \(M_\varphi\) over \(N\).