Contracting self-similar solutions of nonhomogeneous curvature flows (Q2048303)

In this paper the author studies the self-similar solutions to contracting curvature flows in Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) by nonhomogeneous curvature functions, extending his previous results for homogeneous curvature flows. The self-similar solution considered in this paper can be expressed via the following equation \[\langle X(x,0),\nu(x,0)\rangle =-\frac{1}{\psi(t)}\Phi \left(F(\frac{1}{\psi(t)}\mathcal{W}(x,0))\right),\tag{1}\] where \(X(x,0): \mathbb{S}^n\to \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) denotes the initial hypersurface, \(F\) is a curvature function homogeneous of degree one and \(\Phi:[0,\infty)\to \mathbb{R}\) is a nonhomogeneous function. The factor \(\psi(t)\) corresponds to the scaling of the self-similar solution, and the resulting hypersurfaces \(X(x,t)=\psi(t)X(x,0)\) satisfy the evolution equation \[ \frac{\partial}{\partial t}X(x,t)=-\Phi(F(\mathcal{W}(x,t)))\nu(x,t), \] where \(\nu\) is the outer unit normal to \(M_t=X(\mathbb{S}^n,t)\). Previous works on self-similar solutions only focus on the homogeneous function \(\Phi\), and in this case the factor \(1/{\psi(t)}\) can be taken outside \(\Phi\). Then the separation of variables reduces the problem to an elliptic equation for geometric quantities on the initial hypersurface \(M_0\). However, for nonhomogeneous \(\Phi\) this method does not work. The author has to keep all factors \(\psi(t)\) throughout the analysis of the equations. This is one of the main interesting aspects of the paper. As the main results, the author showed that under a sufficient curvature pinching condition on the initial hypersurface and some natural assumptions on the curvature function \(F\) and the nonhomogeneous function \(\Phi\), the only self-similar solutions must be the shrinking spheres. Some interesting examples of \(\Phi\) include \(\Phi(z)=\sum_{\ell=1}^mc_\ell z^{\ell}\) and \(\Phi(z)=\ln(1+z)+z^p\). In a later work [J. Evol. Equ. 21, No. 2, 2265--2291 (2021; Zbl 1473.53105)] the author considered the contraction curvature flows of convex hypersurfaces by nonhomogeneous curvature functions, extending the earlier work by \textit{G. Li} and \textit{Y. Lv} [J. Geom. Anal. 30, No. 1, 417--447 (2020; Zbl 1444.53057)].