An energy approach to uniqueness for higher-order geometric flows (Q345326)

In this paper, the author proposes an alternate technique to introducing an auxiliary equation as in the \textit{D. M. DeTurck} trick to prove uniqueness of solutions to curvature flows on manifolds [J. Differ. Geom. 18, 157--162 (1983; Zbl 0517.53044)]. For simplicity, the technique is presented here for compact manifolds although the author suggests how this extends to non-compact manifolds and, for concreteness, is applied here to a class of quasi-linear higher-order parabolic equations considered recently by \textit{E. Bahuaud} and \textit{D. Helliwell} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 47, No. 6, 980--995 (2015; Zbl 1338.53092)], and detailed at the end of the paper for the cross-curvature flow. The argument of the new technique relies on a prolongation on which the uniqueness problem is embedded into the uniqueness problem to a larger system on differences of (some of) the evolving quantities followed by the consideration of an energy defined by the \(L^2\) norm of these differences which is then shown to satisfy a differential inequality. The uniqueness result for the prolonged system becomes then a consequence of the standard energy argument for strictly parabolic equations.