Soap films with gravity and almost-minimal surfaces

Francesco Maggi; Salvatore Stuvard; Antonello Scardicchio

doi:10.3934/dcds.2019236

Article Contents

2019, Volume 39, Issue 12: 6877-6912. Doi: 10.3934/dcds.2019236

This issue Previous Article Regularity results for the equation

$ u_{11}u_{22} = 1 $

Next Article Blow-up for the 3-dimensional axially symmetric harmonic map flow into

$ S^2 $

Soap films with gravity and almost-minimal surfaces

1.
Department of Mathematics, The University of Texas at Austin, 2515 Speedway STOP C1200, Austin, TX 78712, USA
2.
International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Strada Costiera 11, Trieste 34151, Italy

Received: June 30, 2018

Revised: December 31, 2018

Published: September 2019

F. M. and S. S. have been supported by NSF Grants DMS-1565354, DMS-1361122 and DMS-1262411

Abstract Full Text(HTML) Figure(6) Related Papers Cited by

Abstract

Motivated by the study of the equilibrium equations for a soap film hanging from a wire frame, we prove a compactness theorem for surfaces with asymptotically vanishing mean curvature and fixed or converging boundaries. In particular, we obtain sufficient geometric conditions for the minimal surfaces spanned by a given boundary to represent all the possible limits of sequences of almost-minimal surfaces. Finally, we provide some sharp quantitative estimates on the distance of an almost-minimal surface from its limit minimal surface.

Keywords:

Mathematics Subject Classification: Primary: 49Q05, 49Q15; Secondary: 53A10.

Citation:

Full Text(HTML)

Figure 1. On the left, a boundary $ \Gamma $, consisting of three circles, that is accessible from infinity. The acute wedges realizing the inclusions 3 are depicted by dashed lines. Notice that it is not necessary that $ \Gamma $ is contained into a convex set, or into a mean convex set, for the condition to hold. On the right, another set of circles defining a boundary $ \Gamma $ which does not satisfy accessibility from infinity. Indeed, there is no way to touch the smaller circle with an acute wedge containing the larger ones

Download: Full-size image PowerPoint slide

Figure 5. The construction described in Example 7

Download: Full-size image PowerPoint slide

Figure 4. When Γ consists of two parallel disks there are, in addition to the disconnected surface defined by two disks, four minimal surfaces, two of them singular, all composed by joining pieces of catenoids

Download: Full-size image PowerPoint slide

Figure 3. Using Gauss' capillarity energy to formulate Plateau's problem. Minimization of $ \sigma\,\mathcal{H}^2(M) $ among surfaces with $ \partial M = \Gamma $ is replaced by minimizing the capillarity energy among regions contained in the complement of a $ \delta $-neighborhood of $ \Gamma $. Equilibrium configurations with volume $ \varepsilon\ll\delta\,\mathcal{H}^2(S)\ll1 $ arise as normal neighborhoods of minimal surfaces spanned by $ \Gamma $. Here $ S $ denotes the boundary of $ E $ away from the wire frame

Download: Full-size image PowerPoint slide

Figure 2. The derivation of 12, after [16, Section Ⅰ.4]

Download: Full-size image PowerPoint slide

Figure 6. Bubbling is possible even when $\Gamma$ is accessible from infinity if a weak notion of deficit is used. Here $M_j$ is the surface of revolution obtained by rotating the one-dimensional profile on the right, $B_{\varepsilon _j}(\Gamma_1)$ denotes an $\varepsilon _j$-neighborhood of the circle $\Gamma_1$, and $M_j^*$ is the part of $M_j$ lying outside $B_{\varepsilon _j}(\Gamma_1)$. We take $\varepsilon _j$ such that $M_j$ intersects $\partial B_{\varepsilon _j}(\Gamma_1)$ in three circles, and so that the $H_{M_j}$ is uniformly small on $M_j\setminus M_j^*$. The limit surface counts one copy of $K$, and two copies of the disk filling $\Gamma_1$

Download: Full-size image PowerPoint slide

Related Papers

Cited by

References

[1]	W. K. Allard, On the first variation of a varifold, Ann. Math., 95 (1972), 417-491. doi: 10.2307/1970868.
[2]	W. K. Allard, On the first variation of a varifold: boundary behaviour, Ann. Math., 101 (1975), 418-446. doi: 10.2307/1970934.
[3]	S. Amato, G. Bellettini and M. Paolini, Constrained BV functions on covering spaces for minimal networks and Plateau's type problems, Adv. Calc. Var., 10 (2017), 25-47. doi: 10.1515/acv-2015-0021.
[4]	H. Brezis and J.-M. Coron, Multiple solutions of $H$-systems and Rellich's conjecture, Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 37 (1984), 149-187. doi: 10.1002/cpa.3160370202.
[5]	M. Cicalese, G. P. Leonardi and F. Maggi, Improved convergence theorems for bubble clusters I. The planar case, Indiana Univ. Math. J., 65 (2016), 1979-2050. doi: 10.1512/iumj.2016.65.5932.
[6]	G. Ciraolo and F. Maggi, On the shape of compact hypersurfaces with almost-constant mean curvature, Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 70 (2017), 665-716. doi: 10.1002/cpa.21683.
[7]	C. Cohen, B. Darbois Texier, E. Reyssat, J. H. Snoeijer, D. Quéré and C. Clanet, On the shape of giant soap bubbles, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114 (2017), 2515-2519. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1616904114.
[8]	G. David, Should we solve Plateau's problem again?, in Advances in analysis: The legacy of Elias M. Stein, Princeton Math. Ser., 50, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 2014,108-145.
[9]	P.-G. de Gennes, F. Brochard-Wyart and D. Quéré, Capillarity and Wetting Phenomena, Translated by A. Reisinger, Springer, 2003. doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-21656-0.
[10]	C. De Lellis, A. De Rosa and F. Ghiraldin, A direct approach to the anisotropic plateau problem, Adv. Calc. Var. doi: 10.1515/acv-2016-0057.
[11]	C. De Lellis, F. Ghiraldin and F. Maggi, A direct approach to Plateau's problem, J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS), 19 (2017), 2219-2240. doi: 10.4171/JEMS/716.
[12]	C. De Lellis and J. Ramic, Min-max theory for minimal hypersurfaces with boundary, preprint, arXiv: 1611.00926, to appear in Jour. Ann. Inst. Fourier.
[13]	G. De Philippis, A. De Rosa and F. Ghiraldin, A direct approach to Plateau's problem in any codimension, Adv. Math., 288 (2016), 59-80. doi: 10.1016/j.aim.2015.10.007.
[14]	G. De Philippis and F. Maggi, Sharp stability inequalities for the Plateau problem, J. Differential Geom., 96 (2014), 399-456. doi: 10.4310/jdg/1395321846.
[15]	A. De Rosa, Minimization of anisotropic energies in classes of rectifiable varifolds, SIAM J. Math. Anal., 50 (2018), 162-181. doi: 10.1137/17M1112479.
[16]	R. Defay and I. Prigogine, Surface Tension and Adsorption, Translated by D. G. Everett, John Wiley and sons, Inc., New York, NY, 1966.
[17]	M. G. Delgadino and F. Maggi, Alexandrov's theorem revisited, preprint, arXiv: 1711.07690. doi: 10.2140/apde.2019.12.1613.
[18]	M. G. Delgadino, F. Maggi, C. Mihaila and R. Neumayer, Bubbling with $L^2$-almost constant mean curvature and an Alexandrov-type theorem for crystals, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal., 230 (2018), 1131-1177. doi: 10.1007/s00205-018-1267-8.
[19]	F. Duzaar and M. Fuchs, On the existence of integral currents with prescribed mean curvature vector, Manuscripta Math., 67 (1990), 41-67. doi: 10.1007/BF02568422.
[20]	F. Duzaar and M. Fuchs, A general existence theorem for integral currents with prescribed mean curvature form, Boll. Un. Mat. Ital. B (7), 6 (1992), 901-912.
[21]	Y. Fang and S. Kolasinski, Existence of solutions to a general geometric elliptic variational problem, Calc. Var. Partial Differential Equations, 57 (2018), 91. doi: 10.1007/s00526-018-1348-4.
[22]	H. Federer and W. H. Fleming, Normal and integral currents, Ann. of Math. (2), 72 (1960), 458-520. doi: 10.2307/1970227.
[23]	A. Figalli and F. Maggi, On the shape of liquid drops and crystals in the small mass regime, Arch. Rat. Mech. Anal., 201 (2011), 143-207. doi: 10.1007/s00205-010-0383-x.
[24]	C. F. Gauss, Principia generalia theoriae figurae fluidorum, Comment. Soc. Regiae Scient. Gottingensis Rec.
[25]	D. Gilbarg and N. S. Trudinger, Elliptic partial differential equations of second order, Springer, Berlin; New York, 1998.
[26]	G. G. Giusteri, L. Lussardi and E. Fried, Solution of the Kirchhoff-Plateau problem, J. Nonlinear Sci., 27 (2017), 1043-1063. doi: 10.1007/s00332-017-9359-4.
[27]	E. Giusti, Direct Methods in the Calculus of Variations, World Scientific Publishing Co., Inc., River Edge, NJ, 2003. doi: 10.1142/9789812795557.
[28]	J. Harrison, On Plateau's problem for soap films with a bound on energy, J. Geom. Anal., 14 (2004), 319-329. doi: 10.1007/BF02922075.
[29]	J. Harrison and H. Pugh, Existence and soap film regularity of solutions to Plateau's problem, Adv. Calc. Var., 9 (2016), 357-394. doi: 10.1515/acv-2015-0023.
[30]	G. Huisken, Nonparametric mean curvature evolution with boundary conditions, J. Differential Equations, 77 (1989), 369-378. doi: 10.1016/0022-0396(89)90149-6.
[31]	B. Krummel and F. Maggi, Isoperimetry with upper mean curvature bounds and sharp stability estimates, Calc. Var. Partial Differential Equations, 56 (2017), Art. 53, 43. doi: 10.1007/s00526-017-1139-3.
[32]	P. S. Laplace, Mécanique céleste, 1806, Suppl. 10th volume.
[33]	G. P. Leonardi and F. Maggi, Improved convergence theorems for bubble clusters II. The three-dimensional case, Indiana Univ. Math. J., 66 (2017), 559-608. doi: 10.1512/iumj.2017.66.6016.
[34]	R. Schätzle, Quadratic tilt-excess decay and strong maximum principle for varifolds, Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa Cl. Sci. (5), 3 (2004), 171-231.
[35]	L. Simon, Lectures on Geometric Measure Theory, Proceedings of the Centre for Mathematical Analysis, 3, Australian National University, Centre for Mathematical Analysis, Canberra, 1983.
[36]	J. Spruck, Interior gradient estimates and existence theorems for constant mean curvature graphs in $M^n\times\bf R$, Pure Appl. Math. Q., 3 (2007), 785-800. doi: 10.4310/PAMQ.2007.v3.n3.a6.
[37]	M. Struwe, A global compactness result for elliptic boundary value problems involving limiting nonlinearities, Math. Z., 187 (1984), 511-517. doi: 10.1007/BF01174186.
[38]	B. White, Currents and flat chains associated to varifolds, with an application to mean curvature flow, Duke Math. J., 148 (2009), 41-62. doi: 10.1215/00127094-2009-019.
[39]	T. Young, An essay on the cohesion of fluids, Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, 65–87. doi: 10.1098/rspl.1800.0095.