Variational analysis of a mean curvature flow action functional (Q2017812)

The authors consider the reduced Allen-Cahn action functional, which arises as the sharp interface limit of the Allen-Cahn action functional and is thought of as a formal action functional for a stochastically perturbed mean curvature flow. Denote by \(\Sigma =(\Sigma_t)_{t\in (0,T)}\) a family of smooth surfaces that evolve smoothly except for finitely many ``singular times''. The reduced action functional is given by \(S_0(\Sigma)=c_0\int_0^T\int_{\Sigma_t}(|\overrightarrow{v}(x,t)|^2+ |\overrightarrow{H}(x,t)|^2)d\mathcal{H}^n(x)dt+2S_{0,nuc}(\Sigma)\), where \(S_{0,nuc}(\Sigma)= 2c_0\sum_iH^n(\Sigma^i)\), (\(n+1\) is the space dimension), and \(\Sigma^i\) denotes the \(i\)-th component of \(\Sigma\) at its nucleation time, \(\overrightarrow{v}\) denotes the normal velocity vector for the evolution \((\Sigma_t)_{t\in (0,T)}, \overrightarrow{H}(t,.)\) denotes the mean curvature vector of \(\Sigma_t\) and the constant \(c_0\) depends on the choice of the double-well potential \(W\). The authors study the formal mean curvature flow action functional obtained from the above reduced action functional for evolutions of generalized hypersurfaces. They present a variational analysis of the reduced Allen-Cahn action functional. They prove a compactness and lower semicontinuity theorem, which ensures the applicability of the direct method of the calculus of variations, and consequently gives the existence of minimizers. Then the authors continue with the study of some properties of the smooth stationary points for the action functional. They derive the Euler-Lagrange equation for the action-minimization problem and study some associated conserved quantities which reveal some analogies with Lagrangian mechanics. They consider a specific example by studying the problem of finding the action-optimal connection between two concentric circles.