On the Almgren minimality of the product of a paired calibrated set and a calibrated manifold of codimension 1

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we prove the various minimality of the product of a 1-codimensional calibrated manifold and a paired calibrated set. This is motivated by the attempt to classify all possible singularities for Almgren minimal sets – Plateau’s problem in the setting of sets. The Almgren minimality was introduced by Almgren to modernize Plateau’s problem. It gives a very good description of local behavior for soap films. The natural question of whether the product of any two Almgren minimal sets is still minimal is still open, although it seems obvious in intuition. We prove the Almgren minimality for the product of two large classes of Almgren minimal sets – the class of 1-codimensional calibrated manifolds and the class of paired calibrated sets. The general idea is to properly combine different topological conditions (separation and spanning) under different homology groups, to set up a reasonable topological condition and prove the minimality for the product under this condition, which will imply the Almgren minimality. A main difficulty comes from the codimension – algebraic coherences such as multiplicity, separation and orientation do not exist anymore for codimensions larger than 1. An unexpectedly useful thing in the present paper is the flow of the calibrations. Its most important role among all is helping us to do the decomposition of a competitor with the help of the first projections along the flows.