Min-max theory for capillary surfaces

Abstract

We develop a min-max theory for the construction of capillary surfaces in 3-manifolds with smooth boundary. In particular, for a generic set of ambient metrics, we prove the existence of nontrivial, smooth, almost properly embedded surfaces with any given constant mean curvature $c$, and with smooth boundary contacting at any given constant angle $\theta$. Moreover, if $c$ is nonzero and $\theta$ is not $\frac{\pi}{2}$, then our min-max solution always has multiplicity one. We also establish a stable Bernstein theorem for minimal hypersurfaces with certain contact angles in higher dimensions.