Compactness analysis for free boundary minimal hypersurfaces (Q1703149)

A hypersurface $M^{n}$, $n\geq 2$, is free-boundary minimal hypersurface in a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary $(N^{n+1}, g)$ if it is a critical point for the $n$-dimensional area functional under the unique constraint that $\partial M \subset \partial N$ or equivalently if $M$ has zero mean curvature and meets the ambient boundary orthogonally. The authors study compactness phenomena involving free-boundary minimal hypersurfaces in compact Riemannian manifold with boundary of dimension less than 8. They give natural geometric conditions that imply strong one-sheeted graphical subsequential convergence, and describe various relevant phenomena when instead multi-sheeted convergence occurs. They show that a uniform lower bound on some eigenvalue of the Jacobi operator together with a uniform upper bound on the area is sufficient for a weak compactness result, in the sense of graphical but possibly multi-sheeted convergence away from finitely many points where necks (or half-necks, at boundary points) may form. They investigate for $n\geq 2$ when a properly embedded minimal hypersurface is the limit of free-boundary minimal hypersurfaces of a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary $(N^{n+1}, g)$. The authors present two appendices that are devoted to certain technical aspects appearing in the proofs of some of their results. Namely in the first appendix they give a detailed derivation of the second variation formula for smooth hypersurfaces with boundary (without assuming either minimality of the hypersurface or orthogonal intersection with the ambient manifold).