Estimation of the second derivatives for surfaces evolving under the action of their principal curvatures (Q1922768)

The authors formulate a theorem on the global unique solvability of the first initial-boundary value problem for equations of the form \[ {-u_t\over \sqrt{1+u^2_x}}+f_m(k(u))=g\quad\text{in}\quad Q=\Omega\times (0,T), \] where \(\Omega\) is a smooth bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(k(u)\) denotes the vector of principal curvatures of the graph of \(u\), \(g\) is a given function on \(Q\), and \(f_m\) is the \(m\)th root of the \(m\)th elementary symmetric function. For \(g\equiv 0\) this equation describes a graph which evolves in the direction of its normal vectorfield with speed \(f_m(k(u))\). The theorem is not completely proved. The authors show only how to estimate the second derivatives of \(u\) in the interior in terms of a bound for their values on the boundary and a global gradient bound. This is done for more general operators than \(f_m(k(u))\).