A Theory of Branched Minimal Surfaces

Beschreibung

One of the most elementary questions in mathematics is whether an area minimizing surface spanning a contour in three space is immersed or not; i.e. does its derivative have maximal rank everywhere. The purpose of this monograph is to present an elementary proof of this very fundamental and beautiful mathematical result. The exposition follows the original line of attack initiated by Jesse Douglas in his Fields medal work in 1931, namely use Dirichlet's energy as opposed to area. Remarkably, the author shows how to calculate arbitrarily high orders of derivatives of Dirichlet's energy defined on the infinite dimensional manifold of all surfaces spanning a contour, breaking new ground in the Calculus of Variations, where normally only the second derivative or variation is calculated. The monograph begins with easy examples leading to a proof in a large number of cases that can be presented in a graduate course in either manifolds or complex analysis. Thus this monograph requires only the most basic knowledge of analysis, complex analysis and topology and can therefore be read by almost anyone with a basic graduate education.
One of the most elementary questions in mathematics is whether an area minimizing surface spanning a contour in three space is immersed or not; i.e. does its derivative have maximal rank everywhere. The purpose of this monograph is to present an elementary proof of this very fundamental and beautiful mathematical result. The exposition follows the original line of attack initiated by Jesse Douglas in his Fields medal work in 1931, namely use Dirichlet's energy as opposed to area. Remarkably, the author shows how to calculate arbitrarily high orders of derivatives of Dirichlet's energy defined on the infinite dimensional manifold of all surfaces spanning a contour, breaking new ground in the Calculus of Variations, where normally only the second derivative or variation is calculated. The monograph begins with easy examples leading to a proof in a large number of cases that can be presented in a graduate course in either manifolds or complex analysis. Thus this monograph requires only the most basic knowledge of analysis, complex analysis and topology and can therefore be read by almost anyone with a basic graduate education.
Presents an elementary proof of a very fundamental and beautiful mathematical result First complete presentation of this results in the mathematical literature It can be read by almost anyone with a basic graduate education Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autor*in

Anthony Tromba

Themen in »A Theory of Branched Minimal Surfaces«

30B10, 49J50, 49Q05, 53A10, 58E12, 58C20 Branch Points Immersed Minimal Surfaces Minimal Surfaces Plateau's Problem

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From the reviews:

“The author provides a self-contained study of a theory of branched minimal surfaces. … The goal of the book is to study the question whether an area minimizing surface spanning a contour in three dimensional space is immersed or not, that is does its derivative have maximal rank everywhere. The exposition starts with some simple examples and continues with nicely presented proofs. The book can be useful for a graduate course or seminar.” (Themistocles M. Rassias, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1247, 2012)

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