Geroch monotonicity and the construction of weak solutions of the inverse mean curvature flow (Q2348284)

Let \((N,g_N)\) be a complete Riemannian manifold of dimension \(n\geq 2\), not assumed to be compact. A classical solution to the inverse mean curvature flow is the datum of an \((n-1)\)-dimensional manifold \(M\) along with a one-parameter family of embeddings \(F(\cdot,t): M\longrightarrow N\), \(t\in[0,T),\) satisfying the equation \[ \frac{\partial F}{\partial t}(x,t)=\frac{\nu(x,t)}{H(x,t)},\,\,(x,t)\in M\times(0,T), \] where \(H(\cdot,t)\) is the mean curvature and \(\nu(\cdot,t)\) is the exterior normal vector of \(M_t=F(M,t).\) Due to the parabolic character of the equation, the Cauchy datum at time \(t=0\) is of the form \[ F(M,0)=M_0, \] where \(M_0\subset N\) is a given hypersurface. It is known [\textit{C. Gerhardt}, J. Differ. Geom. 32, No. 1, 299--314 (1990; Zbl 0708.53045)] that a classical solution exists for all times when \(M_0\) is the smooth boundary of a bounded and star-shaped set with positive mean curvature, and it approaches an expanding spherical solution as \(t\to+\infty\). However, for other initial conditions a classical solution might not exist. \textit{G. Huisken} and \textit{T. Ilmanen} [J. Differ. Geom. 59, No. 3, 353--437 (2001; Zbl 1055.53052)] introduced a notion of weak solution, based on a level set formulation, in which a function \(u\) gives rise to a solution of the inverse mean curvature flow (with \(M_t=u^{-1}(\{t\})\)) iff \[ \mathrm{div}\Bigl(\frac{\nabla u}{|\nabla u|}\Bigr)=|\nabla u|.\leqno(u) \] In this paper, the author studies the role of the Geroch monotonicity in the context of a specific approach to the construction of weak solutions, which is based on an approximation of the above equation \((u)\) by the equation \[ \mathrm{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)=|\nabla u|^p,\,\,\,\,p>1, \] which in turn can be transformed through \(v=e^{u/(1-p)}\) into the \(p\)-harmonic equation \[ \mathrm{div}(|\nabla v|^{p-2}\nabla v)=0, \] and this allows to obtain uniform control of the solutions in suitable Sobolev spaces. This yields the construction of weak solutions under very weak hypotheses on the initial data.