We consider the obstacle problem of the weak solution for the mean curvature flow, in the sense of Brakke's mean curvature flow. We prove the global existence of the weak solution with obstacles which have $C^{1,1}$ boundaries, in two and three space dimensions. To obtain the weak solution, we use the Allen-Cahn equation with forcing term.
We prove convergence of solutions to the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation to Brakke's motion by mean curvature in space forms, generalizing previous results from [15] in Euclidean space. We show that a sequence of measures, associated to energy density of solutions of the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation, converges in the limit to a family of rectifiable Radon measures, which evolves by mean curvature flow in the sense of Brakke. A key role is played by a local almost monotonicity formula (a weak counterpart of Huisken's monotonicity formula) proved in [22], to get various density bounds for the lim…
We study the convergence of the system of the Allen-Cahn equations to the weak solution for the multi-phase mean curvature flow in the sense of Brakke. The Landau-Lifshitz equation in this paper can be regarded as a system of Allen-Cahn equations with the Lagrange multiplier, which is a phase field model of the multi-phase mean curvature flow. Under an assumption that the limit of the energies of the solutions for the equations matches with the total variation for the singular limit of the solutions, we show that the family of the varifolds derived from the energies is a Brakke flow.
In this paper we consider the Allen-Cahn equation with constraint. In 1994, Chen and Elliott studied the asymptotic behavior of the solution of the Allen-Cahn equation with constraint. They proved that the zero level set of the solution converges to the classical solution of the mean curvature flow under the suitable conditions on initial data. In 1993, Ilmanen proved the existence of the mean curvature flow via the Allen-Cahn equation without constraint in the sense of Brakke. We proved the same conclusion for the Allen-Cahn equation with constraint.
Brakke flow is defined with a variational inequality, which means it may have discontinuous mass over time, i.e. have mass drop. It has long been conjectured that the Brakke flow associated to a nonfattening level set flow has no mass drop and achieves equality in the Brakke inequality. Under natural assumptions, we show that a flow has no mass drop if and only if it satisfies the multiplicity one conjecture $\mathcal{H}^n$-a.e. One application is that there is no mass drop for level set flows with mean convex neighborhoods of singularities, and a generic flow has no mass drop until there is a…
In this paper we prove an analogue of the Brakke's $\varepsilon$-regularity theorem for the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation. In particular, we show uniform $C^{2,α}$ regularity for the transition layers converging to smooth mean curvature flows as $\varepsilon\rightarrow0$. The proof utilises Allen-Cahn versions of the monotonicity formula, parabolic Lipschitz approximation and blowups. A corresponding gap theorem for entire eternal solutions of the parabolic Allen-Cahn is also obtained. As an application of the regularity theorem, we give an affirmative answer to a question of Ilmanen that ther…
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 investigate the relation between the level set approach and the varifold approach for the mean curvature flow with Neumann boundary conditions. With an appropriate initial data, we prove that the almost all level sets of the unique viscosity level set solution satisfy Brakke's inequality and a generalized Neumann boundary condition.
In this article we study eternal solutions to the Allen-Cahn equation in the 3-sphere, in view of the connection between the gradient flow of the associated energy functional, and the mean curvature flow. We construct eternal integral Brakke flows that connect Clifford tori to equatorial spheres, and study a family of such flows, in particular their symmetry properties. Our approach is based on the realization of Brakke's motion by mean curvature as a singular limit of Allen-Cahn gradient flows, as studied by Ilmanen, and Tonegawa, and it uses the classification of ancient gradient flows in sp…
In [LW], we construct examples of two-dimensional Hamiltonian stationary self-shrinkers and self-expanders for Lagrangian mean curvature flows, which are asymptotic to the union of two Schoen-Wolfson cones. These self-shrinkers and self-expanders can be glued together to yield solutions of the Brakke flow - a weak formulation of the mean curvature flow. Moreover, there is no mass loss along the Brakke flow. In this paper, we generalize these results to higher dimension. We construct new higher dimensional Hamiltonian stationary cones of different topology as generalizations of the Schoen-Wolfs…
We are concerned with solutions to the parabolic Allen-Cahn equation in Riemannian manifolds. For a general class of initial condition we show non positivity of the limiting energy discrepancy. This in turn allows to prove almost monotonicity formula (a weak counterpart of Huisken's monotonicity formula) which gives a local uniform control of the energy densities at small scales. Such results will be used in [40] to extend previous important results from [31] in Euclidean space, showing convergence of solutions to the parabolic Allen-Cahn equations to Brakke's motion by mean curvature in space…
We give a proof that Brakke's mean curvature flow under the unit density assumption is smooth almost everywhere in space-time. More generally, if the velocity is equal in a weak sense to its mean curvature plus some given α-Hölder continuous vector field, then we show C^{2,α} regularity almost everywhere.
We propose a new weak solution concept for (two-phase) mean curvature flow which enjoys both (unconditional) existence and (weak-strong) uniqueness properties. These solutions are evolving varifolds, just as in Brakke's formulation, but are coupled to the phase volumes by a simple transport equation. First, we show that, in the exact same setup as in Ilmanen's proof [J. Differential Geom. 38, 417-461, (1993)], any limit point of solutions to the Allen-Cahn equation is a varifold solution in our sense. Second, we prove that any calibrated flow in the sense of Fischer et al. [arXiv:2003.05478] -…
In this article we use the mean curvature flow with surgery to derive regularity estimates for the level set flow going past Brakke regularity in certain special conditions allowing for 2-convex regions of high density. We also show a stability result for the plane under the level set flow.
Institut für Mathematik & Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Wissenschaftliches Rechnen, Universität Heidelberg(海德堡大学数学系与跨学科科学计算中心);Department of Mathematics Graduate School of Science Kyoto University(京都大学理学研究科数学系)
This paper presents a new partial differential equation to build Brakke's motion, which is a weak notion of mean curvature flow. We call the equation a modified Allen-Cahn equation abbreviated to MAC. After that we introduce its benefit: An improved estimate on the discrepant energy that means the equipartition of the first energy. This equation is obtained by rendering the parameter in Allen-Cahn equation time-dependent and adding a term like Z-transform. Furthermore, we mention the existence of a Brakke's motion through our MAC.
We introduce a level-set formulation for the mean curvature flow with obstacles and show existence and uniqueness of a viscosity solution. These results generalize a well known viscosity approach for the mean curvature flow without obstacle by Evans and Spruck and Chen, Giga and Goto in 1991. In addition, we show that this evolution is consistent with the variational scheme introduced by Almeida, Chambolle and Novaga (2012) and we study the long time behavior of our viscosity solutions.
We give a new proof of Brakke's partial regularity theorem up to C^{1,ς} for weak varifold solutions of mean curvature flow by utilizing parabolic monotonicity formula, parabolic Lipschitz approximation and blow-up technique. The new proof extends to a general flow whose velocity is the sum of the mean curvature and any given background flow field in a dimensionally sharp integrability class. It is a natural parabolic generalization of Allard's regularity theorem in the sense that the special time-independent case reduces to Allard's theorem.
We consider the sharp interface limit of the Allen-Cahn equation with Dirichlet or dynamic boundary conditions and give a varifold characterization of its limit which is formally a mean curvature flow with Dirichlet or dynamic boundary conditions. In order to show the existence of the limit, we apply the phase field method under the vanishing on the boundary and the boundedness of the discrepancy measure. For this purpose, we extend the usual Brakke flow under these boundary conditions by the first variations for varifolds on the boundary.
We prove Taylor scaling for dislocation lines characterized by line-tension and moving by curvature under the action of an applied shear stress in a plane containing a random array of obstacles. Specifically, we show--in the sense of optimal scaling--that the critical applied shear stress for yielding, or percolation-like unbounded motion of the dislocation, scales in proportion to the square root of the obstacle density. For sufficiently small obstacle densities, Taylor scaling dominates the linear-scaling that results from purely energetic considerations and, therefore, characterizes the dom…
Suppose that $Γ_0\subset\mathbb R^{n+1}$ is a closed countably $n$-rectifiable set whose complement $\mathbb R^{n+1}\setminus Γ_0$ consists of more than one connected component. Assume that the $n$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of $Γ_0$ is finite or grows at most exponentially near infinity. Under these assumptions, we prove a global-in-time existence of mean curvature flow in the sense of Brakke starting from $Γ_0$. There exists a finite family of open sets which move continuously with respect to the Lebesgue measure, and whose boundaries coincide with the space-time support of the mean curva…
A family of hypersurfaces evolves by mean curvature flow if the velocity at each point is given by the mean curvature vector. Mean curvature flow is the most natural evolution equation in extrinsic geometry, and has been extensively studied ever since the pioneering work of Brakke and Huisken. In the last 15 years, White developed a far-reaching regularity and structure theory for mean convex mean curvature flow, and Huisken-Sinestrari constructed a flow with surgery for two-convex hypersurfaces. In this course, I first give a general introduction to the mean curvature flow of hypersurfaces an…
Mean curvature flow of clusters of n-dimensional surfaces in R^{n+k} that meet in triples at equal angles along smooth edges and higher order junctions on lower dimensional faces is a natural extension of classical mean curvature flow. We call such a flow a mean curvature flow with triple edges. We show that if a smooth mean curvature flow with triple edges is weakly close to a static union of three n-dimensional unit density half-planes, then it is smoothly close. Extending the regularity result to a class of integral Brakke flows, we show that this implies smooth short-time existence of the …
We show short time existence and uniqueness of $\C^{1,1}$ solutions to the mean curvature flow with obstacles, when the obstacles are of class $\C^{1,1}$. If the initial interface is a periodic graph we show long time existence of the evolution and convergence to a minimal constrained hypersurface.
We consider the problem of evolving hypersurfaces by mean curvature flow in the presence of obstacles, that is domains which the flow is not allowed to enter. In this paper, we treat the case of complete graphs and explain how the approach of M. Saez and the second author yields a global weak solution to the original problem for general initial data and onesided obstacles.
In this paper, we study an obstacle problem associated with the mean curvature flow with constant driving force. Our first main result concerns interior and boundary regularity of the solution. We then study in details the large time behavior of the solution and obtain the convergence result. In particular, we give full characterization of the limiting profiles in the radially symmetric setting.
In this paper, we prove the mean-convex neighborhood conjecture for neck singularities of the mean curvature flow in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ for all $n\geq 3$: we show that if a mean curvature flow $\{M_t\}$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ has an $S^{n-1}\times \mathbb{R}$ singularity at $(x_0,t_0)$, then there exists an $\varepsilon=\varepsilon(x_0,t_0)>0$ such that $M_t\cap B(x_0,\varepsilon)$ is mean-convex for all $t\in(t_0-\varepsilon^2,t_0+\varepsilon^2)$. As in the case $n=2$, which was resolved by the first three authors in arXiv:1810.08467, the existence of such a mean-convex neighborhood follows fr…
Let $N$ be a smooth $(n+l)$-dimensional Riemannian manifold. We show that if $V$ is an area-stationary union of three or more $C^{1,μ}$ $n$-dimensional submanifolds-with-boundary $M_k \subset N$ with a common boundary $Γ$, then $Γ$ is smooth and each $M_k$ is smooth up to $Γ$ (real-analytic in the case $N$ is real-analytic). This extends a previous result of the author for codimension $l = 1$. We additionally show that if $\{V_t\}_{t \in (-1,1)}$ is a Brakke flow such that each time-slice $V_t$ is a union of three or more $n$-dimensional submanifolds-with-boundary $M_{k,t} \subset N$ with a co…