A local description of 2-dimensional almost minimal sets bounded by a curve (Q2145189)

In this quite long paper, the author makes a thorough investigation of the local regularity of 2-dim. soap films near a smooth 1-dim. boundary. A pivotal role in their study is played by the notion of sliding almost minimal sets, a concept introduced by the author in [CRM Proceedings and Lecture Notes 56, 67--117 (2013; Zbl 1271.49030)], and further extended in [\textit{G. David}, Local regularity properties of almost- and quasiminimal sets with a sliding boundary condition. Paris: Société Mathématique de France (SMF) (2019; Zbl 1428.49001)]. The later paper has some intersection with the one under review. This central concept, sliding almost minimal sets, adapts the spirit of Almgren notion of restricted set, see e.g. [\textit{F. J. Almgren jun.}, Existence and regularity almost everywhere of solutions to elliptic variational problems with constraints. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (1976; Zbl 0327.49043)]. The author's contribution lies in the framework of the general Plateau problem, that is, 2-dim. soap films bounded by a curve, so it follows a long list of distinguished well-known papers by F. J. Almgren Jr., J. Douglas, H. Federer, W. H. Fleming, E. De Giorgi, T. Radó, E. R. Reifenberg, and J. Taylor among several others. The main results are similar to the classical results of Jean Taylor for interior points, see [\textit{J. E. Taylor}, Ann. Math. (2) 103, 489--539 (1976; Zbl 0335.49032)]; as a matter of fact the author looks for an analogue of a celebrated Taylor's result near a smooth, 1-dim. boundary. In the simplest case when a half plane is bounded by a line their version is stated as Theorem 1.4 in the text, a general statement is given by Theorem 31.1. The influence of the results of the celebrated authors in the above quoted list is actually sensed throughout besides the author's own contributions. The text, divided into five parts, and thirty-nine sections, aims to obtain a detailed description of sliding 2-dimension almost minimal sets, when close enough to a half plane, a plane or a union of two half planes bounded by the same line, or transverse minimal cones of the so called types Y or T. The results obtained hold for classes of almost minimal sets lying outside the scope of Almgren and Taylor results. An initial description of the paper results is given in the first section of the first part, along with a comparison of the fundamental concepts introduced in the paper with well known ones. Further, a geometric analysis of possible singularities, aiming a classification, is presented, followed by preliminary proof elements of Theorem 1.4 and, an investigation of the density excess and decay, approximation by cones, and balls centered on the boundary. The first section ends with a description of the detailed notation to be used in the whole paper. The second section brings the study of minimal cones bounded by a line, which extends a previous investigation of the author [Ann. Fac. Sci. Toulouse, Math. (6) 18, No. 1, 65--246 (2009; Zbl 1213.49051)], made for plain minimal cones, that is, without a boundary condition. In this section the author works out thoroughly the details, given by seven lemmas, of the technical contents of Proposition 2.1. The third section introduces a standard decomposition of a 2-dimension minimal set in higher dimension, with sliding boundary L, which is used to construct competitors for the almost minimal set and to define the so called full length property. In the fourth and last section of the first part, the full length property is further explored. The second part handles the density decay for balls centered on the boundary line. After a brief description of the goal of this part, the following fourteen sections lead to the detailed construction of three competitors for an almost minimal set aiming to get differential inequalities which allow to obtain decay estimates for a density excess function. Actually the control of the excess function derivative allows the author to estimate the growth of several quantities, see the differential inequality 18.11 in Proposition 18.1, which plays a central role in this respect. In the third part the author uses the density excess function to analyze the geometric behavior near some cones, spheres and annuli. The main result of this third part, Theorem 22.2, is quite elaborate and its proof and immediate consequences take most of Sections 19--22. Through it the author proves Theorems 1.8 and 1.9 stated in the first section. In the fourth part the author considers a sliding almost minimal set with a sliding boundary condition that comes from a line and generalize some previous results of the second and third parts to the case of balls that are centered on the sliding set but off the line. For this the author proves analogues of the full length condition already proven in the previous parts for balls centered on the line. The Theorems 24.1 and 24.2 and their consequences involve a great amount of this lengthy part. Finally, in the fifth, and last, part it is presented a local description of sliding almost minimal sets of dimension 2 near a one-dimensional, smooth sliding boundary L. It is first studied the case where L is a line. The general case where L is a smooth curve is handled in Section 38, actually it is explained, in the section, why all previous regularity results still hold when the boundary line is replaced by a curve with smoothness degree greater than one. This impressive long paper constitutes an important dense text extending fundamental works in the area.