Existence and soap film regularity of solutions to Plateau's problem

DOI10.1515/ACV-2015-0023zbMATH Open1361.49008arXiv1310.0508OpenAlexW2963839841MaRDI QIDQ323096FDOQ323096

Authors: Jenny Harrison, Harrison Pugh 

Publication date: 7 October 2016

Published in: Advances in the Calculus of Variations (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Plateau's soap film problem is to find a surface of least area spanning a given boundary. We begin with a compact orientable $(n-2)$-dimensional submanifold $M$ of $R^n$. If $M$ is connected, we say a compact set $X$ "spans" $M$ if $X$ intersects every Jordan curve whose linking number with $M$ is 1. Picture a soap film that spans a loop of wire. Using $(n-1)$-dimensional Hausdorff spherical measure as the measure of the size of a compact set $X$ in $R^n$, we prove there exists a smallest compact set $X_0$ that spans $M$. We also show that $X_0$ is almost everywhere a real analytic $(n-1)$-dimensional minimal submanifold and if $n=3$, then $X_0$ has the structure of a soap film as predicted by Plateau. We provide more details about the minimizer $X_0$. Primarily, $X_0$ is the support of a current $S_0$ and $M$ is the support of the algebraic boundary of $S_0$. We also discuss the more general case where $M$ has codimension $>2$.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.0508

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zbMATH Keywords

spanning setfilm chainslinking numberPlateau's problemsoap film

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Regularity of solutions in optimal control (49N60) Methods involving semicontinuity and convergence; relaxation (49J45) Minimal surfaces and optimization (49Q05) Distributions and generalized functions on nonlinear spaces (46T30) Measures, integration, derivative, holomorphy (all involving infinite-dimensional spaces) (46G99)

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