The space of minimal annuli bounded by an extremal pair of planar curves (Q1905836)

The authors continue the study of minimal annuli bounded by a pair of planar closed convex curves in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) started in their paper [Comment. Math. Helv. 66, No. 2, 263-278 (1991; Zbl 0731.53004)]. They show that, given a pair of such curves \(C\), not necessarily in parallel planes but lying on the boundary of its convex hull (i.e. extremal), then \(C\) is the boundary of 0, 1 or 2 minimal annuli. Moreover, in the first case \(C\) is not the boundary of any connected minimal surface, and in the third one, one of the annuli is stable and the other is unstable. They also show that there exist nonembedded minimal annuli bounding a pair of closed curves in parallel planes, where each of these curves has total curvature \(4\pi + \varepsilon\). Finally they prove that the space of embedded minimal annuli with boundary curves contained in distinct horizontal planes is contractible.