Complete nonorientable minimal surfaces in \(\mathbb{R}^ 3\) (Q2368012)

A complete minimal immersion \(x(M) \subset \mathbb{R}^ 3\) is stable, if the second variation of area is nonnegative for every compactly supported \(C^ 1\) variation of \(x(M)\). It is well known, that \(x(M)\) has to be a plane, if \(M\) is orientable and \(x(M)\) is stable, see \textit{D. Fischer- Colbrie} and \textit{R. Schön}, [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 33, 199-211 (1980; Zbl 0439.53060)], \textit{M. P. do Carmo} and \textit{C. K. Peng} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc., New Ser. 1, 903-906 (1979; Zbl 0442.53013)]. The present paper gives investigations in the case of nonorientable \(M\). The above mentioned results keep to be true, if \(x(M)\) is finitely branched, but it is false for nonorientable surfaces as Henneberg's surface shows (which is stable and has two branch points). A typical result given in this paper is the following: Suppose \(x(M) \subset \mathbb{R}^ 3\) to be a complete, regular, nonorientable, minimally immersed surface of finite total curvature. Then \(x(M)\) is unstable. Furthermore the author discusses the case of hyperelliptic \(\bar N\) and classifies the antipodal maps of \(\bar N\) (\(N\) denotes the double cover of the nonorientable \(M\); \(N=\bar N\setminus \{p_ 1,\dots,p_ k\}\) is conformally a finitely- punctured compact Riemannian surface \(\bar N\)).