We study the Plateau Problem of finding an area minimizing disk bounding a given Jordan curve in Alexandrov spaces with curvature ≥ κ. These are complete metric spaces with a lower curvature bound given in terms of triangle comparison. Imposing an additional condition that is satisfied by all Alexandrov spaces according to a conjecture of Perel’man, we develop a harmonic map theory from two dimensional domains into these spaces. In particular, we show that the solution to the Dirichlet problem from a disk is H¨older continuous in the interior and continuous up to the boundary. Using this theory, we solve the Plateau Problem in this setting generalizing classical results in Euclidean space (due to J. Douglas and T. Rado) and in Riemannian manifolds (due to C.B. Morrey).

The purpose of this paper is to solve a problem posed by Strominger in constructing smooth models of superstring theory with flux. These are given by non-K¨ahler manifolds with torsion

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Let $\Omega $ be a bounded $C^2$ domain in $R^n$ and $\phi : \partial \Omega \to \mathbb{R}^m$ be a continuous map. The Dirichlet problem for the minimal surface system asks whether there exists a Lipschitz map $f : \Omega \to \mathbb{R}^m$ with $ f |_{\partial \Omega}$ and with the graph of $f$ a minimal submanifold in $R^{n+m}$. For $m = 1$, the Dirichlet problem was solved more than thirty years ago by Jenkins-Serrin [13] for any mean convex domains and the solutions are all smooth. This paper considers the Dirichlet problem for convex domains in arbitrary codimension $m$. We prove if $\psi : \bar{\Omega} \to \mathbb{R}^m$ satisfies $8n\delta sup_{\Omega}||D^2 \psi| + \sqrt{2} sup_{\partial \Omega} |D\psi| <1$, then the Dirichlet problem for $ \psi |_{\partial \Omega}$ is solvable in smooth maps. Here $\delta$ is the diameter of $\Omega$ . Such a condition is necessary in view of an example of Lawson-Osserman [15]. In order to prove this result, we study the associated parabolic system and solve the Cauchy-Dirichlet problem with $\psi$ as initial data.

A discrete conformality for polyhedral metrics on surfaces is introduced in this paper which generalizes earlier work on the subject. It is shown that each polyhedral metric on a surface is discrete conformal to a constant curvature polyhedral metric which is unique up to scaling. Furthermore, the constant curvature metric can be found using a discrete Yamabe flow with surgery.