A variational characterization of the catenoid

DOI10.1007/S00526-012-0579-ZMaRDI QIDQ2636864zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Jacob Bernstein, Christine Breiner

Publication date 18 February 2014

Published in Calculus of Variations and Partial Differential Equations (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1012.3941

zbMATH Keywords

catenoidminimal surfacevariational characterization

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Minimal surfaces in differential geometry, surfaces with prescribed mean curvature (53A10)

Abstract: In this note, we use a result of Osserman and Schiffer cite{OS} to give a variational characterization of the catenoid. Namely, we show that subsets of the catenoid minimize area within a geometrically natural class of minimal annuli. To the best of our knowledge, this fact has gone unremarked upon in the literature. As an application of the techniques, we give a sharp condition on the lengths of a pair of connected, simple closed curves $sigm{a}_1$ and $sigm{a}_2$ lying in parallel planes that precludes the existence of a connected minimal surface $Sigma$ with $partialSigma=sigm{a}_{1}cupsigm{a}_2$.

Review text

The authors give a new variational characterization of the catenoid in terms of a class of minimal surfaces in the slab \(\Omega\) bounded by two parallel planes in \(\mathbb R^3\). Specifically, let \(A(\Omega)\) consist of the smooth minimal surfaces that can be injectively parameterized by an annulus and that span the two planes defining \(\Omega\). The authors prove that, among surfaces in \(A(\Omega)\), the least area is a attained by that piece of a catenoid obtained by rigid motions and homotheties of the maximally symmetric stable piece of the standard catenoid \(\{x_1^2 + x_2^2 = \cosh x_3 \}\). The authors' methods rely on earlier work of \textit{R. Osserman} and \textit{M. Schiffer} [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 58, 285--307 (1975; Zbl 0352.53005)]. Additionally, the authors use their techniques to give a sharp condition on the lengths of a pair of simple closed curves lying in parallel planes that must hold if there exists a connected minimal surface spanning the curves.

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Cited in

(25)

• The catenoid estimate and its geometric applications
• One-dimensional projective structures, convex curves and the ovals of Benguria and Loss
• The doubly connected minimal surfaces between two circles in parallel planes
• New characterizations of the helicoid in a cylinder
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