Local Uniformization and Free Boundary Regularity of Minimal Singular Surfaces

Abstract

We continue the study of minimal singular surfaces obtained by a minimization of a weighted energy functional in the spirit of J. Douglas’s approach to the Plateau problem. Modeling soap films spanning wire frames, a singular surface is the union of three disk-type surfaces meeting along a curve which we call the free boundary. We obtain an a priori regularity result concerning the real analyticity of the free boundary curve. Using the free boundary regularity of the harmonic map, we construct local harmonic isothermal coordinates for the minimal singular surface in a neighborhood of a point on the free boundary. Applications of the local uniformization are discussed in relation to H. Lewy’s real analytic extension of minimal surfaces.