The Plateau problem in Alexandrov spaces (Q616683)

The authors study in an Alexandrov space with curvature \(\geq \kappa\) the Plateau problem of finding an area minimizing disk spanning a given Jordan curve. Under the additional condition that the Aleksandrov space satisfies Perel'man's conjecture, a theory of harmonic maps from a two-dimensional domain into an Alexandrov space is developed. It is shown that for a two-dimensional disk the solution of the Dirichlet problem is Hölder continuous in the interior and continuous up to the boundary. Further, the developed theory is applied to establish existence of solutions to the analogue of the classical Plateau problem in Alexandrov spaces.