English

The Plateau problem for polygonal boundary curves in Minkowski 3-space

Differential Geometry 2010-12-17 v1

Abstract

We apply Garnier's method to solve the Plateau problem for maximal surfaces in Minkowski 3-space. Our study relies on the improved version we gave of R. Garnier's resolution of the Plateau problem for polygonal boundary curves in Euclidean 3-space. Since in Minkowski space the method does not allow us to avoid the existence of singularities, the appropriate framework is to consider maxfaces -- generalized maximal surfaces without branch points, introduced by M. Umehara and K. Yamada. We prove that any given spacelike polygonal curve in generic position in Minkowski 3-space bounds at least one maxface of disk-type. This is a new result, since the only known result for the Plateau problem in Minkowski space (due to N. Quien) deals with boundary curves of regularity C3,αC^{3,\alpha}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1012.3582,
  title  = {The Plateau problem for polygonal boundary curves in Minkowski 3-space},
  author = {Laura Desideri},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1012.3582},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

32 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:59:42.214Z