Inverse Mean Curvature Flow of Rotationally Symmetric Hypersurfaces
Brian Harvie
备注：
40 pages, 7 figures. This version includes more exposition on rotationally symmetric immersions, some additional applications, and a simpler example of a non-star-shaped admissible initial surface
We prove that the Inverse Mean Curvature Flow of a non-star-shaped, mean-convex embedded sphere in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with symmetry about an axis and sufficiently long, thick necks exists for all time and homothetically converges to a round sphere as $t \rightarrow \infty$. Our approach is based on a localized version of the parabolic maximum principle.
We also present two applications of this result. The first is an extension of the Minkowski inequality to the corresponding non-star-shaped, mean-convex domains in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. The second is a connection between IMCF and minimal surface theory. Based on previous work by Meeks and Yau and using foliations by IMCF, we establish embeddedness of the solution to Plateau's problem and a finiteness property of stable immersed minimal disks for certain Jordan curves in $\mathbb{R}^{3}$.
In this paper, we consider the area-preserving mean curvature flow with free Neumann boundaries. We show that for a rotationally symmetric $n$-dimensional hypersurface in $\R^{n+1}$ between two parallel hyperplanes will converge to a cylinder with the same area under this flow. We use the geometric properties and the maximal principle to obtain gradient and curvature estimates, leading to long-time existence of the flow and convergence to a constant mean curvature surface.
In this paper we study sets in the $n$-dimensional Heisenberg group $\hhn$ which are critical points, under a volume constraint, of the sub-Riemannian perimeter associated to the distribution of horizontal vector fields in $\hhn$. We define a notion of mean curvature for hypersurfaces and we show that the boundary of a stationary set is a constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurface. Our definition coincides with previous ones. Our main result describes which are the CMC hypersurfaces of revolution in $\hhn$. The fact that such a hypersurface is invariant under a compact group of rotations allow…
In this paper, we study the existence, uniqueness and asymptotic behavior of rotationally symmetric translating solitons of the mean curvature flow in Minkowski space. We also study the asymptotic behavior and the strict convexity of general solitons of such flows.
In an ambient space with rotational symmetry around an axis (which include the Hyperbolic and Euclidean spaces), we study the evolution under the volume-preserving mean curvature flow of a revolution hypersurface M generated by a graph over the axis of revolution and with boundary in two totally geodesic hypersurfaces (tgh for short). Requiring that, for each time t, the evolving hypersurface M_t meets such tgh ortogonally, we prove that: a) the flow exists while M_t does not touch the axis of rotation; b) throughout the time interval of existence, b1) the generating curve of M_t remains a gra…
We consider convex hypersurfaces for which the ratio of principal curvatures at each point is bounded by a function of the maximum principal curvature with limit 1 at infinity. We prove that the ratio of circumradius to inradius is bounded by a function of the circumradius with limit 1 at zero. We apply this result to the motion of hypersurfaces by arbitrary speeds which are smooth homogeneous functions of the principal curvatures of degree greater than one. For smooth, strictly convex initial hypersurfaces with ratio of principal curvatures sufficiently close to one at each point, we prove th…
We consider the evolution of starshaped hypersurfaces in the Euclidean space by general curvature functions. Under appropriate conditions on the curvature function, we prove the global existence and convergence of the flow to a hypersurface of prescribed curvature.
In this paper, we establish the curvature estimates for $p$-convex hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ of prescribed curvature with $p\geq \frac{n}{2}$. The existence of a star-shaped hypersurface of prescribed curvature is obtained. We also prove a type of interior $C^2$ estimates for solutions to the Dirichlet problem of the corresponding equation.
In this paper, we study the Dirichlet problem for $p$-convex hypersurfaces with prescribed curvature. We prove that there exists a graphic hypersurface satisfying the prescribed curvature equation with homogeneous boundary condition. An interior curvature estimate is also obtained.
We prove existence in the Minkowski space of entire spacelike hypersurfaces with constant negative scalar curvature and given set of lightlike directions at infinity; we also construct the entire scalar curvature flow with prescribed set of lightlike directions at infinity, and prove that the flow converges to a spacelike hypersurface with constant scalar curvature. The proofs rely on barriers construction and a priori estimates.
We construct solutions of the Cahn-Hilliard equation whose nodal set converges to a given constant mean curvature hypersurface in a Riemannian manifold.
In this paper, we prove the existence of smooth, entire, strictly convex, spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurfaces with prescribed lightlike directions in Minkowski space. This is equivalent to prove the existence of smooth, entire, strictly convex, spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurfaces with prescribed Gauss map image. We also show that there doesn't exist any entire, convex, strictly spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurfaces. Moreover, we generalize the result in \cite{RWX} and construct strictly convex, spacelike, constant $σ_k$ curvature hypersurface with bounde…
In previous work [GIKW21], we have presented evidence from numerical simulations that the Type-II singularities of mean curvature flow (MCF) of rotationally-symmetric, complete, noncompact embedded hypersurfaces constructed in [IW19, IWZ21] are stable. More precisely, it is shown in that paper that for small rotationally-symmetric perturbations of initial embeddings near the "tip", numerical simulations of MCF of such initial embeddings develop the same Type-II singularities with the same "bowl soliton" blowup behaviors in a neighborhood of the singularity. It is also shown in that work that f…
In this work we classify the stable regions (second order minima of perimeter under an area constraint) in tori of revolution with piecewise continuous decreasing Gauss curvature from the longest parallel and with a horizontal symmetry. Some applications to isoperimetric problems are also given.
We study asymptotic behavior of nonparametric hypersurfaces moving by $α$ powers of Gauss curvature $α> 1/n$. Our work generalizes the results of V. Oliker [Oli91] for $α= 1$.
We prove existence and stability of smooth entire strictly convex spacelike hypersurfaces of prescribed Gauss curvature in Minkowski space. The proof is based on barrier constructions and local a priori estimates.
We give a full classification of complete rotationally invariant surfaces with constant Gauss curvature in Berger spheres: they are either Clifford tori, which are flat, or spheres of Gauss curvature $K \geq K_0$ for a positive constant $K_0$, which we determine explicitly and depends on the geometry of the ambient Berger sphere. For values of $K_0 \leq K \leq K_P$, for a specific constant $K_P$, it was not known until now whether complete constant Gauss curvature $K$ surfaces existed in Berger spheres, so our classification provides the first examples. For $K > K_P$, we prove that the rotatio…
Gromov and Sormani conjectured that sequences of compact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative scalar curvature and area of minimal surfaces bounded below should have subsequences which converge in the intrinsic flat sense to limit spaces which have nonnegative generalized scalar curvature and Euclidean tangent cones almost everywhere. In this paper we prove this conjecture for sequences of rotationally symmetric warped product manifolds. We show that the limit spaces have $H^1$ warping function that has nonnegative scalar curvature in a weak sense, and have Euclidean tangent cones almost ever…
We investigate the mean curvature flows in a class of warped product manifolds with closed hypersurfaces fibering over $\mathbb{R}$. In particular, we prove that under natural conditions on the warping function and Ricci curvature bound for the ambient space, there exists a large class of closed initial hypersurfaces, as geodesic graphs over the totally geodesic hypersurface $Σ$, such that the mean curvature flow starting from $S_0$ exists for all time and converges to $Σ$.
We prove an existence theorem for convex hypersurfaces of prescribed Gauss curvature in the complement of a compact set in Euclidean space which are close to a cone.
We continue the study, initiated by the first two authors in \cite{IW19}, of Type-II curvature blow-up in mean curvature flow of complete noncompact embedded hypersurfaces. In particular, we construct mean curvature flow solutions, in the rotationally symmetric class, with the following precise asymptotics near the "vanishing" time $T$: (1) The highest curvature concentrates at the tip of the hypersurface (an umbilical point) and blows up at the rate $(T-t)^{-1}$. (2) In a neighbourhood of the tip, the solution converges to a translating soliton known as the bowl soliton. (3) Near spatial infi…
Weakly stable constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurfaces are stable critical points of the area functional with respect to volume preserving deformations. We establish a pointwise curvature estimate (in the non-singular dimensions) and a sheeting theorem (in all dimensions) for weakly stable CMC hypersurfaces, giving an effective version of the compactness theorem for weakly stable CMC hypersurfaces established in the recent work of the first and third-named authors. Our results generalize the curvature estimate and the sheeting theorem proven respectively by Schoen--Simon--Yau and Schoen--Si…
We are concerned with spacelike convex hypersurfaces of positive constant (K-hypersurfaces) or prescribed Gauss curvature in Minkowski space. Our main purpose is to study entire solutions as well as the Dirichlet problem in bounded domains of the related Monge-Ampere equation.
We show that closed hypersurfaces in Euclidean space with nonnegative scalar curvature are weakly mean convex. In contrast, the statement is no longer true if the scalar curvature is replaced by the k-th mean curvature, for k greater than 2, as we construct the counter-examples for all k greater than 2. Our proof relies on a new geometric inequality which relates the scalar curvature and mean curvature of a hypersurface to the mean curvature of the level sets of a height function. By extending the argument, we show that complete non-compact hypersurfaces of finitely many regular ends with nonn…
Second derivative pinching estimates are proved for a class of elliptic and parabolic equations, including motion of hypersurfaces by curvature functions such as quotients of elementary symmetric functions of curvature. The estimates imply convergence of convex hypersurfaces to spheres under these flows, improving earlier results of B. Chow and the author. The result is obtained via a detailed analysis of gradient terms in the equations satisfied by second derivatives.
A possible evolution of a compact hypersurface in R^n by mean curvature past singularities is defined via the level set flow. In the case that the initial hypersurface has positive mean curvature, we show that the Brakke flow associated to the level set flow is actually a Brakke flow with equality. We obtain as a consequence that no mass drop can occur along such a flow. As a further application of the techniques used above we give a new variational formulation for mean curvature flow of mean convex hypersurfaces.
We prove existence and uniqueness of entire spacelike hypersurfaces in the Minkowski space with prescribed negative scalar curvature, and with given values at infinity which stay at a bounded distance of a lightcone.
Four constructions of constant mean curvature (CMC) hypersurfaces in the (n+1)-sphere are given, which should be considered analogues of `classical' constructions that are possible for CMC hypersurfaces in Euclidean space. First, Delaunay-like hypersurfaces, consisting roughly of a chain of hyperspheres winding multiple times around an equator, are shown to exist for all values of the mean curvature. Second, a hypersurface is constructed which consists of two chains of spheres winding around a pair of orthogonal equators, showing that Delaunay-like hypersurfaces can be fused together in a symm…
The main objective of the paper is to prove a geometric version of sharp trace and product estimates on null hypersurfaces with finite curvature flux. These estimates play a crucial role to control the geometry of such null hypersurfaces. The paper is based on an invariant version of the classical Littlewood -Paley theory, in a noncommutative setting, defined via heat flow on surfaces.
In 1998 Smoczyk [Smo98] showed that, among others, the blowup limits at singularities are convex for the mean curvature flow starting from a closed star-shaped surface in $\mathbf{R}^3$. We prove in this paper that this is true for the mean curvature flow of star-shaped hypersurfaces in $\mathbf{R}^{n+1}$ in arbitrary dimension $n\geq 2$. In fact, this holds for a much more general class of initial hypersurfaces. In particular, this implies that the mean curvature flow of star-shaped hypersurfaces is generic in the sense of Colding-Minicozzi [CM12].
Given a domain $Ω$ of $\mathbb{R}^{m+1}$ and a $k$-dimensional non-degenerate minimal submanifold $K$ of $\pa Ω$ with $1\le k\le m-1$, we prove the existence of a family of embedded constant mean curvature hypersurfaces which as their mean curvature tends to infinity concentrate along $K$ and intersecting $\partial Ω$ perpendicularly.
In [7], Guan, Ren and Wang obtained a $C^2$ a priori estimate for admissible 2-convex hypersurfaces satisfying the Weingarten curvature equation $σ_2(κ(X))=f(X, ν(X)).$ In this note, we give a simpler proof of this result, and extend it to space forms.
In this paper we study a boundary value problem for the Ricci flow in the two dimensional ball endowed with a rotationally symmetric metric. We show short and long time existence results. We construct families of metrics for which the flow uniformizes the curvature along a sequence of times. Finally we show that if the initial metric has positive Gaussian curvature and the boundary positive geodesic curvature then the flow uniformizes de curvature along a sequence of times.
In this paper, we prove that minimal hypersurfaces when $n\geq 3$ and nonzero constant mean curvature hypersurfaces when $n\geq2$ foliated by spheres in parallel horizontal hyperplanes in ${\mathbb{H}}^n \times \mathbb{R}$ must be rotationally symmetric.
We classify constant mean curvature surfaces invariant by a 1-parameter group of isometries in the Berger spheres and in the special linear group Sl(2, R). In particular, all constant mean curvature spheres in those spaces are described explicitly, proving that they are not always embedded. Besides new examples of Delaunay-type surfaces are obtained. Finally the relation between the area and volume of these spheres in the Berger spheres is studied, showing that, in some cases, they are not solution to the isoperimetric problem.
Analogous to the bowl soliton of mean curvature flow, we construct rotationally symmetric translating solutions to a very large class of extrinsic curvature flows, namely those whose speeds are $α$-homogeneous ($α>0$), elliptic and symmetric with respect to the principal curvatures. We show that these solutions are necessarily convex, and give precise criteria for the speed functions which determine whether these translators are defined on all of $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ or contained in a cylinder. For speeds that are nonzero when at least one of the principal curvatures is nonzero, we are also able t…
Given a smooth, symmetric, homogeneous of degree one function $f\left(λ_{1},\cdots,\,λ_{n}\right)$ satisfying $\partial_{i}f>0$ for all $i=1,\cdots,\,n$, and a rotationally symmetric cone $\mathcal{C}$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, we show that there is a $f$ self-shrinker (i.e. a hypersurface $Σ$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ which satisfies $f\left(κ_{1},\cdots,\,κ_{n}\right)+\frac{1}{2}X\cdot N=0$, where $X$ is the position vector, $N$ is the unit normal vector, and $κ_{1},\cdots,\,κ_{n}$ are principal curvatures of $Σ$) that is asymptotic to $\mathcal{C}$ at infinity.
We show that any smooth solution to the mean curvature flow equations coming out of a rotationally symmetric double cone is also rotationally symmetric.
We study immersed, connected, umbilic hypersurfaces in the Heisenberg group $H_{n}$ with $n$ $\geq $ $2.$ We show that such a hypersurface, if closed, must be rotationally invariant up to a Heisenberg translation. Moreover, we prove that, among others, Pansu spheres are the only such spheres with positive constant sigma-k curvature up to Heisenberg translations.
We show that any strictly mean convex translator of dimension $n\geq 3$ which admits a cylindrical estimate and a corresponding gradient estimate is rotationally symmetric. As a consequence, we deduce that any translating solution of the mean curvature flow which arises as a blow-up limit of a two-convex mean curvature flow of compact immersed hypersurfaces of dimension $n\geq 3$ is rotationally symmetric. The proof is rather robust, and applies to a more general class of translator equations. As a particular application, we prove an analogous result for a class of flows of embedded hypersurfa…
Our aim is to study invariant hypersurfaces immersed in the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$, whose mean curvature is given as a linear function in the unit sphere $\mathbb{S}^n$ depending on its Gauss map. These hypersurfaces are closely related with the theory of manifolds with density, since their weighted mean curvature in the sense of Gromov is constant. In this paper we obtain explicit parametrizations of constant curvature hypersurfaces, and also give a classification of rotationally invariant hypersurfaces.
In this paper, we study the relationship between isoparametric hypersurfaces and hypersurfaces with constant principal curvatures in Finsler spaces. We give some examples of isoparametric hypersurfaces with (non)constant principal curvatures on Randers manifolds with nonconstant flag curvatures. Furthermore, we construct an example of a conformally flat Randers manifold which admits a family of nonisoparametric hyperplanes with constant principal curvatures.
We study minimal hypersurfaces in manifolds of non-negative Ricci curvature, Euclidean volume growth and quadratic curvature decay at infinity. By comparison with capped spherical cones, we identify a precise borderline for the Ricci curvature decay. Above this value, no complete area-minimizing hypersurfaces exist. Below this value, in contrast, we construct examples.
Biconservative hypersurfaces are hypersurfaces which have conservative stress-energy tensor with respect to the bienergy, containing all minimal and constant mean curvature hypersurfaces. The purpose of this paper is to study biconservative hypersurfaces $M^n$ with constant scalar curvature in a space form $N^{n+1}(c)$. We prove that every biconservative hypersurface with constant scalar curvature in $N^4(c)$ has constant mean curvature. Moreover, we prove that any biconservative hypersurface with constant scalar curvature in $N^5(c)$ is ether an open part of a certain rotational hypersurface …
A Lie hypersurface in the complex hyperbolic space is a homogeneous real hypersurface without focal submanifolds. The set of all Lie hypersurfaces in the complex hyperbolic space is bijective to a closed interval, which gives a deformation of homogeneous hypersurfaces from the ruled minimal one to the horosphere. In this paper, we study intrinsic geometry of Lie hypersurfaces, such as Ricci curvatures, scalar curvatures, and sectional curvatures.
We obtain a comparison formula for integrals of mean curvatures of Riemannian hypersurfaces, via Reilly's identities. As applications we derive several geometric inequalities for a convex hypersurface $Γ$ in a Cartan-Hadamard manifold $M$. In particular we show that the first mean curvature integral of a convex hypersurface $γ$ nested inside $Γ$ cannot exceed that of $Γ$, which leads to a sharp lower bound in dimension $3$ for the total first mean curvature of $Γ$ in terms of the volume it bounds in $M$. This monotonicity property is extended to all mean curvature integrals when $γ$ is paralle…
We find complete hypersurfaces of constant curvature in hyperbolic space with a prescribed asymptotic boundary at infinity for a general class of (elliptic) curvature functions which includes the higher order mean curvatures and their curvature quotients.
We propose a notion of stability for capillary hypersurfaces with constant higher order mean curvature and we generalize some results of the classical stability theory for CMC capillary hypersurfaces.
We study rotational hypersurfaces with constant Gauss-Kronecker curvature. We solve the ODE for the generating curves of such hypersurfaces and analyze several geometric properties of such hypersurfaces. In particular, we discover a class of non-compact rotational hypersurfaces with constant and negative Gauss-Kronecker curvature and finite volume, which can be seen as the higher-dimensional generalization of the pseudo-sphere. Finally we investigate other types of rotational hypersurfaces with similar curvature constraints, including those with prescribed Gauss-Kronecker curvature.
