Regularity of minimal surfaces with lower-dimensional obstacles

DOI10.1515/CRELLE-2019-0035MaRDI QIDQ2209449zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Xavier Fernández-Real, Joaquim Serra

Publication date 2 November 2020

Published in Journal für die Reine und Angewandte Mathematik (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.07607

zbMATH Keywords

Plateau problemregularity for minimal surfacesthin obstacle

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Minimal surfaces and optimization (49Q05) Minimal surfaces in differential geometry, surfaces with prescribed mean curvature (53A10) Variational problems concerning minimal surfaces (problems in two independent variables) (58E12)

Abstract: We study the Plateau problem with a lower dimensional obstacle in $mathbb{R}^n$. Intuitively, in $mathbb{R}^3$ this corresponds to a soap film (spanning a given contour) that is pushed from below by a "vertical" 2D half-space (or some smooth deformation of it). We establish almost optimal $C^{1,1/2-}$ estimates for the solutions near points on the free boundary of the contact set, in any dimension $nge2$. The $C^{1,1/2-}$ estimates follow from an $varepsilon$-regularity result for minimal surfaces with thin obstacles in the spirit of the De Giorgi's improvement of flatness. To prove it, we follow Savin's small perturbations method. A nontrivial difficulty in using Savin's approach for minimal surfaces with thin obstacles is that near a typical contact point the solution consists of two smooth surfaces that intersect transversally, and hence it is not very flat at small scales. Via a new "dichotomy approach" based on barrier arguments we are able to overcome this difficulty and prove the desired result.

Review text

In this paper the authors consider the classic Plateau problem with a thin obstacle. The main result is to show that optimal surfaces are \(C^{1,\frac{1}{2}-}\) regular near points on the free boundary of the contact set, in any dimension \(n\ge 2\). Moreover, as the authors pointed out, this regularity result is close to optimal, as any higher \(C^{1,\alpha}\) regularity with \(\alpha>1/2\) would run against the fact that solutions of the Signorini problem are only \(C^{1,\frac{1}{2}}\) regular. The Plateau problem involves finding the optimal surface \(E\) minimizing \[ \min \{ P(E;B_1): E\setminus B_1 = E_0 \setminus B_1 \}, \] where \(B_1\) is the unit ball, \(E_0\) is the boundary condition, and \(P(E;B_1)\) is the relative perimeter of \(E\) in \(B_1\). An ``obstacle is a requirement of the form \(E\supset \mathcal{O}\), where \(\mathcal{O}\) is a given set. Thus the Plateau problem with obstacle reads \[ \min \{ P(E;B_1):E\supset \mathcal{O},\ E\setminus B_1 = E_0 \setminus B_1 \}. \tag{1} \] A ``thin obstacle, as considered in this paper, is an obstacle \(\mathcal{O}\) of co-dimension 1. Such problem is the geometric version of the Signorini problem, and were studied by [\textit{E. De Giorgi}, Boll. Unione Mat. Ital., IV. Ser. 8, 80--88 (1973; Zbl 0289.49042)] in the 1970s, who established an existence result. However, regularity of optimal surfaces has been proven elusive, with some regularity results by \textit{M. De Acutis} [Rend. Semin. Mat. Univ. Padova 61, 133--144 (1979; Zbl 0514.49022)], \textit{D. Kinderlehrer} [Pac. J. Math. 37, 109--117 (1971; Zbl 0214.10503)], and \textit{E. Giusti} [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 49, 41--56 (1972; Zbl 0257.49015)]. The key difficulty lies on the fact that near a typical point of the contact set the hypersurface \(\partial E\) consists of two surfaces that intersect transversally on \(\partial \mathcal{O}\), hence, after blow up, \(\partial E\) is not flat in general, and (1) cannot be considered as a perturbation of the Signorini problem. Also defining the solution to (1) is not trivial, as the relative perimeter does not see the obstacle. The authors overcome these issues by combining Savin's small perturbation method with a refined ``dichotomy approach, which states that either \(\partial E\) is almost flat in \(B_1\), or it splits into two minimal surfaces that meet at an angle, and have full measure in a smaller ball. In the former case, the problem (1) is essentially a perturbation of the Signorini problem, for which regularity results are available. In the latter case, the authors rely on the \(C^{1,1}\) regularity for minimal surfaces, to improve the flatness of the two surfaces separately.

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Cited in

(9)

• \(C^{1,1}\)-regularity of constrained area minimizing hypersurfaces
• The thin obstacle problem: a survey
• Regularity of solutions to nonlinear thin and boundary obstacle problems
• How a minimal surface leaves a thin obstacle
• Local \(C^{1,\beta }\)-regularity at the boundary of two dimensional sliding almost minimal sets in \(\mathbb{R}^3 \)
• The regularity of minimal surfaces in higher codimension
• Regularity of capillarity droplets with obstacle
• On the singular set in the thin obstacle problem: higher-order blow-ups and the very thin obstacle problem
• Improvement of flatness in annuli

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