Injectivity of minimal immersions and homeomorphic extensions to space

General theory of univalent and multivalent functions of one complex variable (30C55) Embedding of analytic spaces (32C22) Minimal surfaces in differential geometry, surfaces with prescribed mean curvature (53A10) Geodesics in global differential geometry (53C22)

Abstract: We study a recent general criterion for the injectivity of the conformal immersion of a Riemannian manifold into higher dimensional Euclidean space, and show how it gives rise to important conditions for Weierstrass-Ennerper lifts defined in the unit disk

m a t h b b D

endowed with a conformal metric. Among the corollaries, we obtain a Becker type condition and a sharp condition depending on the Gaussian curvature and the diameter for an immersed geodesically convex minimal disk in

m a t h b b R^{3}

to be embedded. Extremal configurations for the criteria are also determined, and can only occur on a catenoid. For non-extremal configurations, we establish fibrations of space by circles in domain and range that give a geometric analogue of the Ahlfors-Weill extension.

Review text

A planar harmonic mapping is a complex-valued harmonic function \(f(z)\) on a domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb C\). If \(\Omega\) is simply connected, then \(f=h+\overline g\), where \(h\) and \(g\) are analytic in \(\Omega\), \(g(z_0)=0\), \(z_0\in\Omega\). A harmonic mapping \(f=h+\overline g\) with \(|h'(z)|+|g'(z)|>0\) lifts locally to a map \(\tilde f\) into a minimal surface \(\Sigma\) described by conformal parameters if and only if its dilatation \(g'/h'=:\omega=q^2\), the square of a meromorphic function \(q\). The first fundamental form of \(\Sigma\) is \(ds^2=e^{2\sigma}|dz|^2\), \(e^{\sigma}=|h'|+|g'|\). The Gauss curvature of \(\Sigma\) at \(\tilde f(z)\) for which \(h'(z)\neq0\) is \(K=-e^{-2\sigma}\Delta\sigma\) with the Laplacian operator \(\Delta\). The Schwarzian derivative \(Sf\) is defined by the formula \[ Sf=2(\sigma_{zz}-\sigma_z)^2,\;\;\sigma_z=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\partial\sigma}{\partial x}-i\frac{\partial\sigma}{\partial y}\right),\;\;z=x+iy. \] Let \(\mathbf g\) be a Riemannian metric on the unit disk \(\mathbb D=\{z:|z|<1\}\). Assume that \(\mathbf g\) is conformal to the Euclidean metric \({\mathbf g}_0=|dz|^2\). The main result is given in the following theorem. Theorem 4.1: Let \(f\) be a harmonic mapping with dilatation \(\omega=q^2\) the square of a meromorphic function in \(\mathbb D\). Let \({\mathbf g}=e^{2\rho}{\mathbf g_0}\) be a metric in \(\mathbb D\) conformal to the Euclidean metric, and suppose that any two points in \(\mathbb D\) can be joined by a geodesic in the metric \(\mathbf g\) of length less than \(\delta\), for some \(0<\delta\leq\infty\). If \[ |Sf-2(\rho_{zz}-\rho_z^2)|+e^{2\sigma}|K|\leq\frac{2\pi^2e^{2\rho}}{\delta^2}+2\rho_{z\overline z}, \] then the lift \(\tilde f\) is injective in \(\mathbb D\). Corollaries 4.3--4.6 draw particular important cases of Theorem 4.1 and state sufficient conditions for injectivity of \(\tilde f\) in \(\mathbb D\). The metric \(\mathbf g\) on \(\mathbb D\) has the Unique Limit Point property (ULP) if: (a) \(\lim_{t\to T}\gamma(t)\) exists (in the Euclidean sense) for every maximally extended geodesic \(\gamma(t)\), \(0\leq t<T\leq\infty\), starting at an arbitrary point \(z_0\in\mathbb D\); (b) the limit point is a continuous function of the initial direction at \(z_0\); (c) there is a geodesic starting at \(z_0\) whose limit point on \(\partial\mathbb D\) is \(\zeta\) with a given \(\zeta\in\partial\mathbb D\). (ULP) plus the continuity of the length function means the (\(\mathrm{ULP}^*\)) property. Theorem 5.3: Let \(f\) be a harmonic mapping satisfying the hypotheses in Theorem 4.1, and suppose that the metric \(\mathbf g\) satisfies (ULP) if it is complete and \(\mathrm{ULP}^*\)) if it is not complete. Then \(\tilde f\) admits a (spherically) continuous extension to the closure \(\overline{\mathbb D}\) of \(\mathbb D\). The author defines extremal lifts \(\tilde f\) whose extension to \(\overline{\mathbb D}\) is not injective on \(\partial\mathbb D\). The metric \(\mathbf g\) on \(\mathbb D\) has the Boundary Points Joined property (BPJ) if any two points on \(\partial\mathbb D\) can be joined by a geodesic which lies in \(\mathbb D\) except for its endpoints. The author studies the extremal lifts and their properties implied by (ULP) (or (\(\mathrm{ULP}^*\))) and (BPJ). In particular, \(\Sigma=\tilde f(\mathbb D)\) is part of a catenoid in this case. The author establishes a criterion involving geodesically convex minimal disk. In the final section, the author describes the procedure that yields the homeomorphic extension to 3-space similar to the Ahlfors-Weill construction.

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