Minimal disks bounded by three straight lines in Euclidean space and trinoids in hyperbolic space (Q2496587)

Three straight lines in 3-dimensional Euclidean space are said to be in generic position if they do not intersect and they do not lie in parallel planes. Riemann was the first to investigate the problem of finding a minimal surface bounded by three lines in generic position. Riemann left brief notes containing formulas, but no text. An exposition of Riemann's work by Karl Hattendorff was published in \textit{Abhandlungen der Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Göttingen} 13 (1868). This exposition appears as the seventeenth article in Riemann's collected works published in 1876. An historical introduction by Hattendorff that appeared in the Göttingen publication is not included in Riemann's collected works. There also is available a French translation of Riemann's collected works to which the author refers. In the paper under review, the author completes Riemann's work -- especially in regard to dealing with the issue of orientation. The author also makes some definitions more precise and, of course, he sets the work in our modern formalism. An additional modernization is the inclusion of a computer generated figure illustrating a minimal surface with three helicoidal ends. One specific result proved in this paper is that three lines in generic position bound a disc type minimal surface with three helicoidal ends of angles less than \(\pi\). In the final section of the paper, the author applies his results to address some other questions. By a trinoid is meant a surface in 3-dimensional hyperbolic space having constant mean curvature 1, genus 0, and 3 catenoidal ends. Using the surfaces that he has constructed earlier in the paper, the author is able to construct trinoids by means of the cousin relation between minimal surfaces and surfaces of constant mean curvature 1.