Free boundary and capillary minimal surfaces in spherical caps I: Low genus

Abstract

This is the first of two articles in which we investigate the geometry of free boundary and capillary minimal surfaces in balls $B_R\subset\mathbb{S}^3$. In this article, we extend our previous half-space intersection properties to warped products, and extend (non-)umbilicity of discs and annuli to capillary minimal surfaces in high codimension. We establish a dual operation relating free boundary and capillary minimal surfaces. These results are discussed in a continuous, unified framework, particularly in relation to uniqueness of minimal annuli.