Quantitative stratification and the regularity of mean curvature flow (Q2376329)

This deep technical paper contains several results regarding the regularity of Brakke flows \(\mathcal{M}=\{(M_t, t) \mid t \in I\}\) of \(n\)-dimensional surfaces in \(\mathbb{R}^N\). At every point \(X \in \mathcal{M}\), there exists a tangent flow obtained by blow up at \(X\). While the tangent flow at \(X\) may not be unique, all tangent flows are self-similar. A stratum \(\mathcal{S}^j(\mathcal{M})\) can be defined by the number of symmetries of the tangent flow at each point. Brian White proved some time ago that the Hausdorff dimension of the strata satisfies \(\dim\mathcal{S}^j(\mathcal{M}) \leq j\). The first result of the present paper is a refinement of White's results. The authors introduce a quantitative stratification \(\mathcal{S}_{\eta, r}^j(\mathcal{M})\) which separates the points of \(\mathcal{M}\) based on \textit{almost symmetries} of parabolic balls of \(\mathcal{M}\) of a fixed radius. The standard stratification can be recovered from the new one via \(\bigcup_{\eta >0} \bigcap_{r>0}\mathcal{S}_{\eta, r}^j(\mathcal{M})=\mathcal{S}^j(\mathcal{M}) \). The new result concerns an estimate of the stronger Minkowski dimension of the quantitative strata. The proof builds up on earlier techniques of quantitative stratification developed by Cheeger and Naber adapted here in the parabolic setting. The main applications are two regularity results for the Brakke flow of \(k\)-convex hypersurfaces. Roughly, one application is a new \(\epsilon\)-regularity theorem for the \(k\)-convex mean curvature flows, while the second asserts that away from a set of small volume, the Brakke flow can be written as a smooth single-values graph of definite size with sharp estimates.