On Plateau's problem for soap films with a bound on energy (Q1769161)

Working in a space of flat dipolyhedra of bounded energy, the author proves the existence and almost everywhere regularity of an area-minimizing surface spanning a given Lipschitz Jordan curve in \({\mathbb R}^3\). Since soap films consist of two surface layers separated by a thin layer of soap solution, dipolyhedra provide a natural model for them. The energy of a 2-dimensional dipolyhedron is the sum of the surface area and the length of the singular branched set. For the Lipschitz Jordan curve \(\gamma\) and the flat dipolyhedron \(A\), in addition to the condition \(\partial A = \delta \gamma\), the notion of \(A\) ``spanning'' \(\gamma\) requires that \(\partial \Pi_* A = \Pi_* \partial A\) hold whenever \(\Pi\) is an orthogonal projection onto a 2-dimensional subspace such that \(\Pi\) is an immersion of \(\gamma\). By applying results of \textit{W. H. Fleming} [Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo, II. Ser. 11, 69--90 (1962; Zbl 0107.31304)] and \textit{W. P. Ziemer} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 105, 496--524 (1962; Zbl 0136.03603)], the author shows that, on the complement of \(\gamma\) and except for a union of Lipschitz Jordan curves with finite total length, the area minimizer is a smooth surface.