An extension of a theorem of Bers and Finn on the removability of isolated singularities to the Euler-Lagrange equations related to general linear growth problems

Abstract: A famous theorem of Bers and Finn states that isolated singularities of solutions to the non-parametric minimal surface equation are removable. We show that this result remains valid, if the area functional is replaced by a general functional of linear growth depending on the modulus of the gradient. We emphasize that Serrin ([1]) in fact proved the removability of singularities on sets of $(n-1)$-dimensional Hausdorff measure zero in an even more general setting. Our main interest is to generalize the comparison principles as outlined, for instance, in Section 10 of [2] without having the particular geometric structure of minimal surfaces. It turns out that generalized catenoids serve as an appropriate tool for proving our results.