Teichmüller harmonic map flow from cylinders (Q2402842)

The author proves the global existence of solution of a geometric flow that is designed to transform surfaces of cylindrical type spanning two disjoint boundary curves into solutions of the Douglas-Plateau problem of finding minimal surfaces with given boundary curves. When the three-point condition does not degenerate as \(t\to\infty\), the author proves the convergence along a sequence \(t_i\to\infty\) to a critical point of the area given either by a minimal cylinder or by two minimal discs spanning the given boundary curves.