Minimal surface equation and Bernstein property on \(\mathsf{RCD}\) spaces (Q7006866)

The article studies the minimal surface equation (MSE) in \(\mathsf{RCD}(K,N)\) spaces, which are metric measure spaces having, in a synthetic sense, Ricci curvature bounded from below by \(K\in \mathbb{R}\) and dimension bounded from above by \(N\in [1,\infty)\). The author proves that if \(u\in W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{1,1}(\Omega)\) is a solution of the MSE, \(\Omega\subset X\) open, then the epigraph of \(u\) is a perimeter minimizing set in \(X\times \mathbb{R}\) and, in an appropriate sense, \(u\) is harmonic on its graph.\N\NAn important consequence of this result is a Bernstein property for \(\mathsf{RCD}(0,N)\) spaces: in this setting, if \(u\) is a positive solution of the MSE then it is constant. In particular, this result directly applies to weighted Riemannian manifolds with convex boundary and remarkably it is new both in the boundaryless weighted setting and for unweighted manifolds with boundary.\N\NOscillation estimates for solutions of the MSE are also derived, indicating that the oscillation must grow at a uniform rate moving away from a base point, generalizing Harnack-type results in Euclidean spaces.\N\NAt a technical level, the proofs of the previous theorems rely on a blow-up argument that allows to reduce the problem to the Euclidean case. For the blow-up procedure, geometric properties of perimeter minimizer sets play a crucial role.