In this paper we study the classification of ancient convex solutions to the mean curvature flow in $\R^{n+1}$. An open problem related to the classification of type II singularities is whether a convex translating solution is $k$-rotationally symmetric for some integer $2\le k\le n$, namely whether its level set is a sphere or cylinder $S^{k-1}\times \R^{n-k}$. In this paper we give an affirmative answer for entire solutions in dimension 2. In high dimensions we prove that there exist non-rotationally symmetric, entire convex translating solutions, but the blow-down in space of any entire convex translating solution is $k$-rotationally symmetric. We also prove that the blow-down in space-time of an ancient convex solution which sweeps the whole space $\R^{n+1}$ is a shrinking sphere or cylinder.
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…
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.
For the minimal graph defined on a convex ring in the space form with nonnegative curvature, we obtain the regularity and the strict convexity about its level sets by the continuity method.
In this paper, we establish a curvature estimate for semi-convex solutions of Hessian equations in hyperbolic space. We also obtain a curvature estimate for admissible solutions to prescribed curvature measure type problem in hyperbolic space. A crucial ingredient in both estimates is a concavity inequality for Hessian operator.
We prove the existence of closed convex ancient solutions to curvature flows which become more and more oval for large negative times. The speed function is a general symmetric function of the principal curvatures, homogeneous of degree greater than one. This generalises previous work on the mean curvature flow and other one-homogeneous curvature flows. As an auxiliary result, we prove a new theorem on the convergence to a round point of convex rotationally symmetric hypersurfaces satisfying a suitable constraint on the curvatures.
In this note we announce results on the mean curvature flow of mean convex sets in 3-dimensions. Loosely speaking, our results justify the naive picture of mean curvature flow where the only singularities are neck pinches, and components which collapse to asymptotically round spheres.
This paper is devoted to $C^2$ a priori estimates for strictly locally convex radial graphs with prescribed Weingarten curvature and boundary in space forms. By constructing two-step continuity process and applying degree theory arguments, existence results in space forms are established for prescribed Gauss curvature equation under the assumption of a strictly locally convex subsolution.
We consider the mean curvature flow of compact convex surfaces in Euclidean $3$-space with free boundary lying on an arbitrary convex barrier surface with bounded geometry. When the initial surface is sufficiently convex, depending only on the geometry of the barrier, the flow contracts the surface to a point in finite time. Moreover, the solution is asymptotic to a shrinking half-sphere lying in a half space. This extends, in dimension two, the convergence result of Stahl for umbilic barriers to general convex barriers. We introduce a new perturbation argument to establish fundamental convexi…
We establish interior $C^2$ estimates for convex solutions of scalar curvature equation and $σ_2$-Hessian equation. We also prove interior curvature estimate for isometrically immersed hypersurfaces $(M^n,g)\subset \mathbb R^{n+1}$ with positive scalar curvature. These estimates are consequences of an interior estimate for these equations obtained under a weakened condition.
We consider compact convex hypersurfaces contracting by functions of their curvature. Under the mean curvature flow, uniformly convex smooth initial hypersurfaces evolve to remain smooth and uniformly convex, and contract to points after finite time. The same holds if the initial data is only weakly convex or non-smooth, and the limiting shape at the final time is spherical. We provide a surprisingly large family of flows for which such results fail, by a variety of mechanisms: Uniformly convex hypersurfaces may become non-convex, and smooth ones may develop curvature singularities; even where…
This article studies the mean curvature flow of Lagrangian submanifolds. In particular, we prove the following global existence and convergence theorem: if the potential function of a Lagrangian graph in T^{2n} is convex, then the flow exists for all time and converges smoothly to a flat Lagrangian submanifold.
We prove a complete family of `cylindrical estimates' for solutions of a class of fully non-linear curvature flows, generalising the cylindrical estimate of Huisken-Sinestrari for the mean curvature flow. More precisely, we show that, for the class of flows considered, an $(m+1)$-convex ($0\leq m\leq n-2$) solution becomes either strictly $m$-convex, or its Weingarten map approaches that of a cylinder $\R^m\times S^{n-m}$ at points where the curvature is becoming large. This result complements the convexity estimate proved by the authors and McCoy for the same class of flows.
Guan-Ren-Wang established the curvature estimate of convex hypersurface satisfying the Weingarten curvature equation $σ_{k}(κ(X)) = f(X,ν(X))$. In this note, we give a simple proof of this result.
A well-known question of Perelman concerns the classification of noncompact ancient solutions to the Ricci flow in dimension $3$ which have positive sectional curvature and are $κ$-noncollapsed. In this paper, we solve the analogous problem for mean curvature flow in $\mathbb{R}^3$, and prove that the rotationally symmetric bowl soliton is the only noncompact ancient solution of mean curvature flow in $\mathbb{R}^3$ which is strictly convex and noncollapsed.
We obtain $C^2$ a priori estimates for solutions of the nonlinear second-order elliptic equation related to the geometric problem of finding a strictly locally convex hypersurface with prescribed curvature and boundary in a space form. Under the assumption of a strictly locally convex subsolution, we establish existence results by using degree theory arguments.
In this work, we propose a new evolving geometric flow (called translating mean curvature flow) for the translating solitons of hypersurfaces in $R^{n+1}$. We study the basic properties, such as positivity preserving property, of the translating mean curvature flow. The Dirichlet problem for the graphical translating mean curvature flow is studied and the global existence of the flow and the convergence property are also considered.
We consider graphical solutions to mean curvature flow and obtain a stability result for homothetically expanding solutions coming out of cones of positive mean curvature: If another solution is initially close to the cone at infinity, then the difference to the homothetically expanding solution becomes small for large times. The proof involves the construction of appropriate barriers.
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.
In this paper, we consider a fully nonlinear curvature flow of a convex hypersurface in the Euclidean n-space. This flow involves k-th elementary symmetric function for principal curvature radii and a function of support function. Under some appropriate assumptions, we prove the long-time existence and convergence of this flow. As an application, we give the existence of smooth solutions to the Orlicz-Christoffel-Minkowski problem.
We study the Dirichlet problem for a graph $Σ$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with normalized constant mean curvature $H>0$ and planar boundary $Γ=\partial Ω$. Our main result is that the optimal solvability condition, namely that the normalized mean curvature $h$ of $Γ$ satisfies $h\geq H$, also suffices when $Ω$ is strictly convex, to prove the strict convexity of $Σ$.
In the last 15 years, White and Huisken-Sinestrari developed a far-reaching structure theory for the mean curvature flow of mean convex hypersurfaces. Their papers provide a package of estimates and structural results that yield a precise description of singularities and of high curvature regions in a mean convex flow. In the present paper, we give a new treatment of the theory of mean convex (and k-convex) flows. This includes: (1) an estimate for derivatives of curvatures, (2) a convexity estimate, (3) a cylindrical estimate, (4) a global convergence theorem, (5) a structure theorem for anci…
We prove some Liouville type theorems on smooth compact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative sectional curvature and strictly convex boundary. This gives a nonlinear generalization in low dimension of the recent sharp lower bound of the first Steklov eigenvalue by Xia-Xiong and verifies partially a conjecture by the third author. As a consequence, we derive several sharp Sobolev trace inequalities on these manifolds.
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…
We show the existence of a smooth solution for the flow deformed by the square root of the scalar curvature multiplied by a positive anisotropic factor $ψ$ given a strictly convex initial hypersurface in Euclidean space suitably pinched. We also prove the convergence of rescaled surfaces to a smooth limit manifold which is a round sphere. In dimension two, it is shown that, with a volume preserving rescaling, the limit profile satisfies a soliton equation.
We consider the Laplace-Beltrami operator with Dirichlet boundary conditions on convex domains in a Riemannian manifold $(M^n,g)$, and prove that the product of the fundamental gap with the square of the diameter can be arbitrarily small whenever $M^n$ has even a single tangent plane of negative sectional curvature. In particular, the fundamental gap conjecture strongly fails for small deformations of Euclidean space which introduce any negative curvature. We also show that when the curvature is negatively pinched, it is possible to construct such domains of any diameter up to the diameter of …
We consider one of the generic regimes of formation of singularities. We obtain a detailed description of a possibly small, but fixed, neighborhood of the blowup point, up to (and including) the blowup time, and find that it is mean convex. This confirms a conjecture by Ilmanen. And we find that the singularity is isolated from the other ones.
X.-J. Wang proved a series of remarkable results on the structure of convex ancient solutions to mean curvature flow. Some of his results do not appear to be widely known, however, possibly due to the technical nature of his arguments and his exploitation of methods which are not widely used in mean curvature flow. In this expository article, we present Wang's structure theory and some of its consequences. We shall simplify some of Wang's analysis by making use of the monotonicity formula and the differential Harnack inequality, and obtain an important additional structure result by exploiting…
A recent article Li and Lv considered contraction of convex hypersurfaces by certain nonhomogeneous functions of curvature, showing convergence to points in finite time in certain cases where the speed is a function of a degree-one homogeneous, concave and inverse concave function of the principle curvatures. In this article we extend the result to various other cases that are analogous to those considered in other earlier work, and we show that in all cases, where sufficient pinching conditions are assumed on the initial hypersurface, then under suitable rescaling the final point is asymptoti…
In this paper, we consider the mean curvature flow of convex hypersurfaces in Euclidean spaces with a general forcing term. We show that the flow may shrink to a point in finite time if the forcing term is small, or exist for all times and expand to infinity if the forcing term is large enough. The flow can also converge to a round sphere for some special forcing term and initial hypersurface. Furthermore, the normalization of the flow is carried out so that long time existence and convergence of the rescaled flow are studied. Our work extends Huisken's well-known mean curvature flow and McCoy…
We define a generalization of convex functions, which we call $δ$-convex functions, and show they must satisfy interior Hölder and $W^{1,p}$ estimates. As an application, we consider solutions of a certain class of fully nonlinear equations in conformal geometry with isolated singularities, in the case of non-negative Ricci curvature. We prove that such solutions either extend to a Hölder continuous function across the singularity, or else have the same singular behavior as the fundamental solution of the conformal Laplacian. We also obtain various removable singularity theorems for these equa…
In this paper, we consider prescribed shifted Gauss curvature equations for horo-convex hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{H}^{n+1}$. Under some sufficient condition, we obtain an existence result by the standard degree theory based on the a prior estimates for the solutions to the equations. Different from the prescribed Weingarten curvature problem in space forms, we do not impose a sign condition for radial derivative of the functions in the right-hand side of the equations to prove the existence due to the horo-covexity of hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{H}^{n+1}$.
In this article, we will use the harmonic mean curvature flow to prove a new class of Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities for strictly convex hypersurfaces in hyperbolic space in terms of total curvature, which is the integral of Gaussian curvature on the hypersurface. We will also use the harmonic mean curvature flow to prove a new class of geometric inequalities for horospherically convex hypersurfaces in hyperbolic space. Using these new Alexandrov-Fenchel type inequalities and the inverse mean curvature flow, we obtain an Alexandrov-Fenchel inequality for strictly convex hypersurfaces in …
We obtain a sharp characterization of the Euclidean ball among all convex bodies K whose boundary has a pointwise k-th mean curvature not smaller than a geometric constant at almost all normal points. This geometric constant depends only on the volume and the boundary area of K. We deduce this characterization from a new isoperimetric-type inequality for arbitrary convex bodies, for which the equality is achieved uniquely by balls. This second result is proved in a more general context of generalized mean-convex sets. Finally we positively answer a question left open in [FLW19] proving a furth…
We approximate boundaries of convex polytopes by smooth hypersurfaces $Y=Y_\varepsilon$ with {\it positive mean curvatures} and, by using basic geometric relations between the scalar curvatures of Riemannin manifolds and the mean curvatures of their boundaries, establish {\it lower bound on the dihedral angles} of these polytopes.
We investigate the existence, convergence and uniqueness of modified general curvature flow of convex hypersurfaces in hyperbolic space with a prescribed asymptotic boundary.
We study fully nonlinear geometric flows that deform strictly $k$-convex hypersurfaces in Euclidean space with pointwise normal speed given by a concave function of the principal curvatures. Specifically, the speeds we consider are obtained by performing a nonlinear interpolation between the mean and the $k$-harmonic mean of the principal curvatures. Our main result is a convexity estimate showing that, on compact solutions, regions of high curvature are approximately convex. In contrast to the mean curvature flow, the fully nonlinear flows considered here preserve $k$-convexity in a Riemannia…
We prove that any complete immersed globally orientable uniformly 2-convex translating soliton $Σ\subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ for the mean curvature flow is locally strictly convex. It follows that a uniformly 2-convex entire graphical translating soliton in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1},\, n\geq 3 $ is the axisymmetric "bowl soliton".
We propose a new approach to the study of compact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature and strictly convex boundary or positive Ricci curvature and convex boundary. Several conjectures are formulated. Some partial results that support these conjectures are established.
On R^n endowed with a riemannian metric of bounded nonpositive curvature, the weakly convex closed subsets are topologically trivial. The stability of such subsets under intersection characterizes the euclidean spaces.
We prove the convexity estimates of Huisken-Sinestrari for finite-time singularities of mean-convex, mean curvature flow with free boundary in a barrier $S$. Here $S$ can be any properly embedded, oriented surface in $R^{n+1}$ of bounded geometry. We also give an alternative proof that convex mean curvature flows with free boundary in $S^n$ pinch to umbilic.
In this paper we find strictly locally convex hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ with prescribed curvature and boundary. The main result is that if the given data admits a strictly locally convex radial graph as a subsolution, we can find a radial graph realizing the prescribed curvature and boundary. As an application we show any smooth domain on the boundary of a compact strictly convex body can be deformed to a smooth hypersurface with the same boundary (inside the convex body) and realizing any prescribed curvature function smaller than the curvature of the body.
In this paper, we generalize a previous result to higher dimension. We prove that uniformly 3-convex translating solitons of mean curvature flow in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$ which arise as blow up limit of embedded, mean convex mean curvature flow must have $SO(n-1)$ symmetry.
Using the convex functions in Grassmannian manifolds we can carry out interior estimates for mean curvature flow of higher codimension. In this way some of the results of Ecker-Huisken can be generalized to higher codimension
The existence of a smooth complete strictly locally convex hypersurface with prescribed scalar curvature and asymptotic boundary at infinity in $\mathbb{H}^{3}$ is proved under the assumption that there exists a strictly locally convex subsolution.
We obtain estimates on both size and dimensions of the singular set at the first blow-up time of the mean curvature flow of hypersurfaces whose initial data is $σ_k$-convex.
