Minimal planes in hyperbolic space (Q1769347)

The author studies the space of all immersed minimal planes in the hyperbolic space \(\mathbb{H}^{3}\) with asymptotically smooth boundaries. Recall that the extended hyperbolic space \(\overline{\mathbb{H}}^{3}\)is obtained by adding to \(\mathbb{H}^{3}\) points of the sphere at infinity \(S_{\infty}^{2}(\mathbb{H}^{3}) \); the asymptotic boundary of an immersed hyperbolic space is its boundary in \(S_{\infty}^{2}(\mathbb{H}^{3}) \). One of the author's main results states that the set of all immersed minimal planes in the hyperbolic space with at least \(C^{3}\)-smooth asymptotic boundary is a manifold. In addition, it is proved that the space of all minimal immersions is a submanifold of the product bundle \(C^{3,\alpha}(S^{1} ,S^{2}) \times C^{3}(S^{1},S^{1}) \) and the bundle projection is a Fredholm mapping of index zero. The author also proves the following finiteness theorem: if \(\Gamma\) is a \(C^{3,\alpha}\)-Jordan curve in the sphere at infinity, then the space of all minimal planes spanning \(\Gamma\) is finite. It is well known that each minimal immersion of a hyperbolic plane is a conformal harmonic mapping from the unit disk into \(\mathbb{H}^{3}\). The results by \textit{P. Li} and \textit{L. F. Tam} [Ann. Math. (2) 137, No. 1, 167--201 (1993; Zbl 0776.58010), Indiana Univ. Math. J. 42, No. 2, 591--635 (1993; Zbl 0790.58011)] on existence and uniqueness of harmonic extensions in \(\mathbb{H}^{3}\) enable the author to reduce the study of the set of conformal harmonic mappings to the study of the set of their induced boundary parametrizations \(\partial D^{2}\rightarrow S_{\infty}^{2}(\mathbb{H}^{3}) \).