Higher order curvature flows on surfaces (Q2501139)

The author considers the equation \((\partial_t g)=\eta g\) for the conformal flow on closed Riemannian surfaces \((M^2,g)\), where the conformal factor \(\eta\) is considered in the following two cases: (i) \(\eta=-\triangle\omega\), (ii) \(\eta=\nabla^2\omega+\nabla(R\nabla\omega)\), where \(\omega=\triangle R+{{1}\over{2}}R^2\) is the Calabi energy and \(R\) is the scalar curvature of \(g\). The main result is that for any initial metric \(g(0)=e^{2u(0)}g_0\) the flow converges asymptotically to a constant scalar curvature metric \(g_\infty=e^{2u_\infty}g_0\). The convergence is uniform and exponentially fast, i.e., there exist \(m, M>0\), such that \(\sup| u(t)-u_\infty| \leq Me^{-mt}\). This work originates in a previous one by Struwe that unified the approach to the Hamiltonian-Ricci and Calabi flow. In fact, it considers a sixth and eighth-order conformal flow on Riemannian surfaces, which arise as gradient flows for the Calabi energy with respect to a higher order metric. Uniform bounds on the conformal factor are obtained via the concentration-compactness result for conformal metrics. In the case of the sphere the author uses the idea of De Turk's gauge flow to derive bounds up to conformal transformations.