Plane curves in fancy balls (Q1069134)

Suppose S is an orientable 2-manifold-with-boundary having no closed components that is smoothly embedded in the standard unit ball \(D^ 4\) in \(R^ 4=C^ 2\) with \(\partial S\) being the transverse intersection of S and \(\partial D^ 4\). It is proved that there is a smooth embedding \(i: D^ 4\to C^ 2\) such that i(S) is a piece of complex curve, and a fortiori a minimal surface in \(R^ 4\). This shows that, without subjecting regions in \(R^ 4\) to some kind of geometrical hypothesis, there is virtually no topological restriction on the manner in which minimal surfaces may be embedded in the region.