Minimal Graph Transformations and their Classification

TL;DR

This paper classifies minimal graph surfaces that can be transformed into other minimal surfaces through graphical transformations, solving a complex PDE system and identifying new families of minimal surfaces.

Contribution

It formulates and solves the Non-Trivial Minimal Graph Transformation Problem, providing a complete classification and discovering new minimal surface families.

Findings

Complete classification of minimal graph transformations.

Explicit solutions involving elliptic integrals.

Identification of new minimal surface families.

Abstract

This paper presents a complete classification of minimal graph surfaces that admit graphical transformations into other minimal surfaces. These transformations are functions that map the height function of a minimal graph surface to another height function, which also describes a minimal graph surface. While trivial maps such as translations and reflections exist, we formulate and solve the Non-Trivial Minimal Graph Transformation Problem, governed by a coupled system of partial differential equations. A central result establishes the rigorous equivalence of this original system to a modified problem for a harmonic function. Through a complex variable approach and a weakening technique, the analysis is reduced to solving a fundamental ordinary differential equation parameterized by a real constant k. The explicit integration of this ordinary differential equation involves various elliptic integrals and identities of elliptic functions. Solving the ordinary differential equation for the three cases: when the constant k equals zero, when k is greater than zero, and when k is less than zero yields the full classification of all admissible surfaces and their associated transformations. This process yields several classes of minimal surfaces that, to the best of the author's knowledge, constitute new families of minimal surfaces.