arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to William H. Meeks III.
We derive intrinsic curvature and radius estimates for compact disks embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with nonzero constant mean curvature and apply these estimates to study the global geometry of complete surfaces embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with nonzero constant mean curvature.
Near the end of his life, Bernhard Riemann made the marvelous discovery of a 1-parameter family $R_λ$, $λ\in (0,\infty)$, of periodic properly embedded minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with the property that every horizontal plane intersects each of his examples in either a circle or a straight line. Furthermore, as the parameter $λ\to 0$ his surfaces converge to a vertical catenoid and as $λ\to \infty$ his surfaces converge to a vertical helicoid. Since Riemann's minimal examples are topologically planar domains that are periodic with the fundamental domains for the associated $\mathbb{Z}$-action being diffeomorphic to a compact annulus punctured in a single point, then topologically each of these surfaces is diffeomorphic to the unique genus zero surface with two limit ends. Also he described his surfaces analytically in terms of elliptic functions on rectangular elliptic curves. This article exams Riemann's original proof of the classification of minimal surfaces foliated by circles and lines in parallel planes and presents a complete outline of the recent proof that every properly embedded minimal planar domain in $\mathbb{R}^3$ is either a Riemann minimal example, a catenoid, a helicoid or a plane.
In this article we survey recent developments in the theory of constant mean curvature surfaces in homogeneous 3-manifolds, as well as some related aspects on existence and descriptive results for $H$-laminations and CMC foliations of Riemannian $n$-manifolds.
In this paper we prove some general results on constant mean curvature lamination limits of certain sequences of compact surfaces $M_n$ embedded in $\mathbb R^3$ with constant mean curvature $H_n$ and fixed finite genus, when the boundaries of these surfaces tend to infinity. Two of these theorems generalize to the non-zero constant mean curvature case, similar structure theorems by Colding and Minicozzi in~[6,8] for limits of sequences of minimal surfaces of fixed finite genus.
In this paper we describe the notion of an annular end of a Riemann surface being of finite type with respect to some harmonic function and prove some theoretical results relating the conformal structure of such an annular end to the level sets of the harmonic function. We then apply these results to understand and characterize properly immersed minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of finite total curvature, in terms of their intersections with two nonparallel planes.
Let $X$ denote a metric Lie group diffeomorphic to $\mathbb{R}^3$ that admits an algebraic open book decomposition. In this paper we prove that if $Σ$ is an immersed surface in $X$ whose left invariant Gauss map is a diffeomorphism onto $\mathbb{S}^2$, then $Σ$ is an embedded sphere. As a consequence, we deduce that any constant mean curvature sphere of index one in $X$ is embedded.
In this paper we prove an extrinsic one-sided curvature estimate for disks embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with constant mean curvature which is independent of the value of the constant mean curvature. We apply this extrinsic one-sided curvature estimate in [24] to prove to prove a weak chord arc type result for these disks. In Section 4 we apply this weak chord arc result to obtain an intrinsic version of the one-sided curvature estimate for disks embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with constant mean curvature. In a natural sense, these one-sided curvature estimates generalize respectively, the extrinsic and intrinsic one-sided curvature estimates for minimal disks embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ given by Colding and Minicozzi in Theorem 0.2 of [8] and in Corollary 0.8 of [9].
In this paper we prove a theorem concerning lamination limits of sequences of compact disks $M_n$ embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with constant mean curvature $H_n$, when the boundaries of these disks tend to infinity. This theorem generalizes to the non-zero constant mean curvature case Theorem 0.1 by Colding and Minicozzi in [8]. We apply this theorem to prove the existence of a chord arc result for compact disks embedded in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with constant mean curvature; this chord arc result generalizes Theorem 0.5 by Colding and Minicozzi in [9] for minimal disks.
In this paper we prove that a complete, embedded minimal surface $M$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with finite topology and compact boundary (possibly empty) is conformally a compact Riemann surface $\overline{M}$ with boundary punctured in a finite number of interior points and that $M$ can be represented in terms of meromorphic data on its conformal completion $\overline{M}$. In particular, we demonstrate that $M$ is a minimal surface of finite type and describe how this property permits a classification of the asymptotic behavior of $M$.
We prove that every closed, smooth $n$-manifold $X$ admits a Riemannian metric together with a smooth, transversely oriented CMC foliation if and only if its Euler characteristic is zero, where by CMC foliation we mean a codimension-one, transversely oriented foliation with leaves of constant mean curvature and where the value of the constant mean curvature can vary from leaf to leaf. Furthermore, we prove that this CMC foliation of $X$ can be chosen so that the constant values of the mean curvatures of its leaves change sign. We also prove a general structure theorem for any such non-minimal CMC foliation of $X$ that describes relationships between the geometry and topology of the leaves, including the property that there exist compact leaves for every attained value of the mean curvature.
For any H in [0,1), we construct complete, non-proper, stable, simply-connected surfaces with constant mean curvature H embedded in hyperbolic 3-space.
In 1997, Collin proved that any properly embedded minimal surface in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with finite topology and more than one end has finite total Gaussian curvature. Hence, by an earlier result of Lopez and Ros, catenoids are the only non-planar, non-simply connected, properly embedded, minimal planar domains in $\mathbb{R}^3$ of finite topology. In 2005, Meeks and Rosenberg proved that the only simply connected, properly embedded minimal surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^3$ are planes and helicoids. Around 1860, Riemann defined a one-parameter family of periodic, infinite topology, properly embedded, minimal planar domains $\mathcal{R}_t$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$, $t\in (0,\infty )$. These surfaces are called the Riemann minimal examples, and the family $\{ \mathcal{R}_t\} _t$ has natural limits being a vertical catenoid as $t\to 0$, and a vertical helicoid as $t\to \infty $. In this paper we complete the classification of properly embedded, minimal planar domains in $\mathbb{R}^3$ by proving that the only connected examples with infinite topology are the Riemann minimal examples. We also prove that the limit ends of Riemann minimal examples are model surfaces for the limit ends of properly embedded minimal surfaces $M\subset \mathbb{R}^3$ of finite genus and infinite topology, in the sense that such an $M$ has two limit ends, each of which has a representative which is naturally asymptotic to a limit end representative of a Riemann minimal example with the same associated flux vector.
In this paper we generalize the Local Removable Singularity Theorem in [16] for minimal laminations to the case of weak $H$-laminations (with $H\in \mathbb{R}$ constant) in a punctured ball of a Riemannian three-manifold. We also obtain a curvature estimate for any weak CMC foliation (with possibly varying constant mean curvature from leaf to leaf) of a compact Riemannian three-manifold $N$ with boundary solely in terms of a bound of the absolute sectional curvature of $N$ and of the distance to the boundary of $N$. We then apply these results to classify weak CMC foliations of $\mathbb{R}^3$ and $\mathbb{S}^3$ with a closed countable set of singularities.
In this paper we prove two theorems. The first one is a structure result that describes the extrinsic geometry of an embedded surface with constant mean curvature (possibly zero) in a homogeneously regular Riemannian three-manifold, in any small neighborhood of a point of large almost-maximal curvature. We next apply this theorem and the Quadratic Curvature Decay Theorem (previously proven by the same authors in [14]) to deduce compactness, descriptive and dynamics-type results concerning the space $D(M)$ of non-flat limits under dilations of any given properly embedded minimal surface $M$ in $\mathbb{R}^3$.
In this paper we prove a local removable singularity theorem for certain minimal laminations with isolated singularities in a Riemannian three-manifold. This removable singularity theorem is the key result used in our proof that a complete, embedded minimal surface in $\mathbb{R}^3$ with quadratic decay of curvature has finite total curvature.
We give a complete classification of the immersed constant mean curvature spheres in a three-sphere with an arbitrary homogenous metric, by proving that for each $H\in\mathbb{R}$, there exists a constant mean curvature $H$-sphere in the space that is unique up to an ambient isometry.
Given a non-compact, simply connected homogeneous three-manifold $X$ and a sequence $\{Ω_n\}_n$ of isoperimetric domains in $X$ with volumes tending to infinity, we prove that as $n\to \infty $: 1. The radii of the $Ω_n$ tend to infinity. 2. The ratios $\{Area} (\partial Ω_n)/\{Vol}(Ω_n)$ converge to the Cheeger constant Ch$(X)$, which we also prove to be equal to $2H(X)$ where $H(X)$ is the critical mean curvature of $X$. 3. The values of the constant mean curvatures $H_n$ of the boundary surfaces $\partial Ω_n$ converge to $\frac{1}{2}\{Ch}(X)$. Furthermore, when Ch$(X)$ is positive, we prove that for $n$ large, $\partial Ω_n$ is well-approximated in a natural sense by the leaves of a certain foliation of $X$, where every leaf of the foliation is a surface of constant mean curvature $H(X)$.
We study the embedded Calabi-Yau problem for complete embedded constant mean curvature surfaces of finite topology or of positive injectivity radius in a simply-connected three-dimensional Lie group X endowed with a left-invariant Riemannian metric. We first prove a half-space theorem for constant mean curvature surfaces. This half-space theorem applies to certain properly immersed constant mean curvature surfaces of X contained in the complements of normal R^2 subgroups F of X. In the case X is a unimodular Lie group, our results imply that every minimal surface in X-F that is properly immersed in X is a left translate of F and that every complete embedded minimal surface of finite topology or of positive injectivity radius in X-F is also a left translate of F.