Minimal graphs in Riemannian spaces

Abstract

In this treatise, we discuss existence and uniqueness questions for parametric minimal surfaces in Riemannian spaces, which represent minimal graphs. We choose the Riemannian metric suitably such that the variational solution of the Riemannian Dirichlet integral under Dirichlet boundary conditions possesses a one-to-one projection onto a plane. At first we concentrate our considerations on existence results for boundary value problems. Then we study uniqueness questions for boundary value problems and for complete minimal graphs. Here we establish curvature estimates for minimal graphs on discs, which imply Bernstein-type results.