David Simmons

University of Washington

Talk Title: Questions about regularity in the anisotropic version of the Plateau problem

Abstract: The anisotropic version of the Plateau problem consists in studying the existence and regularity of minimizers of surface energies arising from anisotropic integrands. In recent years, much exciting progress has been made in determining necessary and sufficient ellipticity conditions for guaranteeing the existence of rectifiable varifold minimizers. This opens the door to asking further questions about the regularity of minimizers. In this talk, we discuss the setup and recent progress of the anisotropic problem as well as describe some questions of interest regarding regularity.