Dynamical instability of minimal surfaces at flat singular points
A family of surfaces is said to move by mean curvature flow if the velocity of motion is equal to the mean curvature vector at each point in time.\N\NThere is a huge body of work dealing with many different aspects of mean curvature flow, from the flow of classical smooth surfaces, to various notions of the flow for less regular surfaces with singularities. Of most relevance here is the so-called Brakke flow, set in the framework of geometric measure theory. It allows the evolving surfaces to be varifolds rather than classical regular submanifolds, and the classical parabolic partial differential equation governing the flow is replaced by a formulation adapted to the language of varifolds, while still capturing the geometric features of the classical mean curvature flow. The Brakke formulation applies to singular configurations such as a moving network of curves with multiple junction points, or a moving cluster of bubbles in three-space, as well a describing the evolution of classical surfaces after singularities develop. A possible disadvantage of the Brakke approach is that a solution for a given initial datum may not be unique.\N\NRecently the authors [Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 60, No. 1, Paper No. 43, 53 p. (2021; Zbl. 1459.53083)] proved the existence of Brakke flows starting from any countably \(n\)-rectifiable set \(\Gamma_0\) in a strictly convex domain in \(\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\), with the additional property that the topological boundary of the evolving varifolds is fixed throughout the flow.\N\NThis result raises a number of questions. First, does there exist a stationary initial datum \(\Gamma_0\) admitting a nontrivial Brakke flow starting from it? Here, nontrivial means that it is genuinely time dependent. If so, nonuniqueness of the Brakke flow follows immediately, since the stationary \(\Gamma_0\) is itself a solution.\N\NSecond, which types of singularities, if any, of a stationary \(\Gamma_0\) necessarily determine the existence of a nontrivial Brakke flow starting from \(\Gamma_0\)?\N\NThe authors' main result provides an affirmative answer to the first question by identifying a type of singularity with the property described in the second question. Suppose a closed countably \(n\)-rectifiable set \(\Gamma_0\) is stationary, and there exists \(x_0\in \Gamma_0\) with the following properties:\N\begin{itemize}\N\item[(1)] one of the tangent cones to \(\Gamma_0\) at \(x_0\) is a flat plane \(T\) with multiplicity \(Q\ge 2\), and\N\item[(2)] the rescalings \((\Gamma_0-\{x_0\})/r\) locally converge to \(T\) at a rate faster than \((\log(1/r))^{-1/2}\) as \(r\rightarrow 0^+\).\N\end{itemize}\NThen, there exists a nontrivial Brakke flow starting from \(\Gamma_0\).\N\NThe authors note that under a natural additional condition, the flow obtained is continuous at \(t=0^+\). Furthermore, they explain that there are many examples of stationary \(\Gamma_0\) with singularities satisfying (1) and (2). However, they do not know of an example of a singularity satisfying (1) for which (2) fails (points satisfying (1) are the flat singular points referred to in the title).\N\NThe authors use the term ``dynamical instability to refer to the nonuniqueness phenomenon described in their main result. They also explain that it is a different notion of stability/instability to that defined using the spectrum of the second variation operator on \(\Gamma_0\).\N\NVarious other questions arising from the results are also discussed.
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