Remarks on viscosity solutions for mean curvature flow with obstacles (Q1700686)

For given obstacles \(\psi, \varphi \in C(\mathbb{R}^n \times (0,\infty), \mathbb{R})\) and \(F \in C(\mathbb{R}_0^n \times S^n, \mathbb{R})\), the equation \[ \max\{ \min\{ u_t + F(Du, D^2u),u-\psi \}, u-\varphi \}=0, (x,t) \in \mathbb{R}^n \times (0,\infty) \tag{1} \] is studied, which is a partial case of the class of second-order partial differential equations of parabolic type: \[ G(x,t,u,u_t,Du,D^2u)=0 , (x,t) \in \mathbb{R}^n \times (0,\infty) \tag{2} \] where \(G \in C(\mathbb{R}^n \times (0,\infty) \times \mathbb{R} \times \mathbb{R} \times \mathbb{R}_0^n \times S^n, \mathbb{R})\) is a given function, \(\mathbb{R}_0^n = \mathbb{R}^n \setminus \{ 0 \}\) and \(S^n = \{ X \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n} | X=X^T\}\). Generally speaking, the aim of the work is to study existence, uniqueness, and regularity for viscosity solutions of obstacle problems for mean curvature flow. More concrete (1) the comparison principle for unbounded viscosity solutions of the mean curvature flow equation with obstacles is established. As well, for approximate equations of obstacle problems, comparison principles are proved for bounded viscosity solutions and for viscosity solutions with quadratic growth in \(x\). In addition the existence of Lipschitz continuous viscosity solutions is proved via the Bernstein method for approximate equations with penalization and regularization. Finally, the existence of periodic solutions for penalized problems is established. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1382.35006].