Maximum principles and nonexistence results for minimal submanifolds (Q921613)

It is well known that a compact minimal surface S in \(R^ 3\) lies within the convex hull of its boundary, and that this geometric property follows directly from the (sub)harmonicity of linear functions restricted to S. As observed by Hildebrandt, the subharmonicity of the quadratic function \(t=x^ 2+y^ 2-z^ 2\) restricted to S leads to a simple geometric criterion for the nonexistence of minimal surfaces with two (or more) boundary components: if \(\Gamma_ 1\) and \(\Gamma_ 2\) lie in the upper and lower nappes (respectively) of the cone defined by t, then there is no connected minimal surface S with \(\partial S=\Gamma_ 1\cup \Gamma_ 2.\) Later Osserman and Schiffer found a slightly larger cone which is optimal for this nonexistence property. The paper under review generalizes their methods and results to n-dimensional minimal (or bounded mean curvature) submanifolds in \({\mathbb{R}}^{n+k}\).