Existence for Willmore surfaces of revolution satisfying non-symmetric Dirichlet boundary conditions

Abstract

AbstractIn this paper, existence for Willmore surfaces of revolution is shown, which satisfy non-symmetric Dirichlet boundary conditions, if the infimum of the Willmore energy in the admissible class is strictly below {4\pi}. Under a more restrictive but still explicit geometric smallness condition we obtain a quite interesting additional geometric information: The profile curve of this solution can be parameterised as a graph over the x-axis. By working below the energy threshold of {4\pi} and reformulating the problem in the Poincaré half plane, compactness of a minimising sequence is guaranteed, of which the limit is indeed smooth. The last step consists of two main ingredients: We analyse the Euler–Lagrange equation by an order reduction argument by Langer and Singer and modify, when necessary, our solution with the help of suitable parts of catenoids and circles.