The structure of stable minimal surfaces near a singularity (Q2460991)

In this paper isolated singularities of stable minimal surfaces in a 3-manifold \(N\) are studied. A minimal surface \(M\) in \(N\) is called locally proper outside the point \(p\in N\) if \(p\not\in\overline{\partial M}\) and if there exists a neighborhood \(W\) of \(p\) such that each component of \(M\cap\overline W\) is proper in \(\overline W\setminus\{p\}\). One of the main results of the paper is that an orientable stable minimal surface which is locally proper outside the point \(p\) extends smoothly across \(p\) as a branched minimal surface. This result is deduced from a more general statement about minimal surfaces which satisfy the weaker hypothesis of being only locally complete outside a point. These results are based on an improved curvature estimate for stable minimal surfaces: if such a surface is locally complete outside of \(p\), then for \(\varepsilon> 0\) there exists \(\delta> 0\) such that the second fundamental form \(A\) of the surface satisfies the estimate \(|A(x)|d(x, p)<\varepsilon\) provided that \(d(x, p)<\delta\) where \(d\) denotes the distance.