Quasilinear parabolic equations and the Ricci flow on manifolds with boundary (Q2861474)

The paper establishes the short-time existence for a quasilinear parabolic equation in a vector bundle over a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary. More precisely, let \(M\) be a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary, \(E\) a vector bundle over \(M\) with metric and connection and \(u\) a \(t-\)dependent section in \(E\). The central object of the paper is the following quasilinear parabolic equation NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \frac{\partial}{\partial t}u(x,t)-H^{ij}(u(x,t),t)\nabla_i\nabla_ju(x,t)=F(u(x,t),\nabla u(x,t),t),~~x\in M^\circ, t\in(0,T) \eqno{(1)} NEWLINE\]NEWLINE with the initial condition \(u(x,0)=u_0(x)\) and the boundary conditions NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\begin{aligned} \text{Pr}_Wu(x,t) &= o(x), \\ \text{Pr}_{W^\perp}(H^{ij}(u(x,t),t)\nu_i(x)\nabla_ju(x,t))&= \Psi(u(x,t),t). \end{aligned} NEWLINE\]NEWLINE Here, \(W\) is a subbundle of \(E_{\partial M}\), where \(E_{\partial M}\) is the restriction of \(E\) to the boundary, \(o(x)\) is the zero section of \(E\), \(\nu\) denotes the outer normal and the map \(\Psi:E_{\partial M}\times [0,\infty)\to W^\perp\) is supposed to be smooth. Under the conditions NEWLINE\[NEWLINE H^{ij}(\eta,t)\xi_i\xi_j\geq C|\xi|^2 NEWLINE\]NEWLINE for all \(\eta\in E, t\in [0,\infty), \xi\in T^*M, C>0\) and NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \begin{aligned} \text{Pr}_Wu_0(x)&= o(x), \\ \text{Pr}_{W^\perp}(H^{ij}(u(x,0),0)\nu_i(x)\nabla_ju(x,0))&= \Psi(u(x,0),0),\quad x\in\partial M,\end{aligned} NEWLINE\]NEWLINE the paper establishes the existence of a short-time solution to \((1)\), which is smooth on \(M\times (0,T)\). \linebreak In the second part of the paper the above result is applied to the Ricci flow on manifolds with boundary. Here, it is assumed that \(M\) is compact, connected and oriented with \(\dim M\geq 3\). Suppose that the Riemannian metric \(g(x,t)\) evolves by NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \frac{\partial}{\partial t}g(x,t)=-2\text{Ric}^g(x,t),~~x\in M^\circ, t\in(0,T) \eqno{(2)} NEWLINE\]NEWLINE with \(\text{Ric}^g(x,t)\) denoting the Ricci curvature of \(g\) and the initial condition \(g(x,0)=g_0(x)\). Under the assumption that the mean curvature of \(\partial M\) with respect to \(g_0\) equals a constant \(H_0\), the existence of a shorttime solution to \((2)\) is established, which is smooth on \(M\times (0,T)\). The mean curvature \(H(x,t)\) of this solution satisfies \(H(x,t)=\mu(t)H_0(x)\) with \(\mu\) being a smooth real-valued function.NEWLINENEWLINEMoreover, for the case of a convex boundary \(\partial M\), the existence of a shorttime solution for the Ricci flow \((2)\) is also provided.