NUMBER OF LEAST AREA PLANES IN GROMOV HYPERBOLIC 3-SPACES

We show that for a generic simple closed curve Gamma in the asymptotic boundary of a Gromov hyperbolic 3-space with cocompact metric X, there exists a unique least area plane Sigma in X such that partial derivative(infinity)Sigma = Gamma. This result has interesting topological applications for constructions of canonical 2-dimensional objects in Gromov hyperbolic 3-manifolds.