A remark on isolated singularities of surfaces with bounded mean curvature: The non-minimizing and non-perpendicular case (Q1587797)

The author proves a result on the removability of isolated singularities at the boundary of stationary (but not necessarily minimizing) parametric surfaces of prescribed mean curvature in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) solving a free boundary problem. The corresponding energy functional has the form \[ {\mathcal F}[Y]=\textstyle{{1\over 2}} \iint |\nabla Y|^2 du dv+ \iint Q(Y)\cdot (Y_u\wedge Y_v) du dv, \] where \(Y\) is a map from a domain \(B\) in the \((u,v)\)-plane into \(\mathbb{R}^3\) and the free condition requires that \(Y\) maps a certain part of \(\partial B\) into a given ``supporting surface'' \(S\subset\mathbb{R}^3\). Under suitable conditions the author shows that when \(X\) is a stationary solution to the above problem such that \(X\in C^2(\overline B\setminus w_0)\) for some point \(w_0\in\partial B\), then \(X\in C^0(\overline B)\). The main hypotheses are that \(X\) stays locally on one side of \(S\) along the free boundary and that \(|Q\cdot N|\leq q\) for some constant \(q< 1\) where \(N\) denotes a unit normal of \(S\). The last condition has an evident geometric meaning since the contact angle \(\alpha\) between \(X\) and \(S\) is determined by \(\cos\alpha=|Q\cdot N|\).