Optimal regularity for minimizers of the prescribed mean curvature functional over isotopies

We prove the optimal $C^{1,1}$ regularity for minimizers of the prescribed mean curvature functional over isotopy classes. As an application, we find an embedded sphere of prescribed mean curvature in the round 3-sphere for an open dense set of prescribing functions with $L^{\mathrm{\infty }}$ norm at most 0.547.