Inverse mean curvature flow for star-shaped hypersurfaces evolving in a cone (Q363213)

The following result for the inverse mean curvature flow (IMCF), due to \textit{C. Gerhardt} [J. Differ. Geom. 32, No. 1, 299--314 (1990; Zbl 0708.53045)], is by now classical: Starting from a closed, smooth, star-shaped hypersurface with strictly positive mean curvature, the surface evolves under the flow for all time and converges to a round sphere when time tends to infinity. The article under review considers classical solutions to IMCF in the case where the initial hypersurface is a star-shaped \(\mathcal{C}^{2,\alpha}\)-surface with strictly positive mean curvature. In contrast to Gerhardt's work, the author considers hypersurfaces which possess a boundary meeting the cone perpendicularly. The cone can be viewed as a supporting hypersurface for the evolving surface, and is not moving itself. The author proves that this flow exists for all time, and the surfaces converge to a piece of the round sphere. The geometrical key step is finding an estimate for the slope of the height function, using the convexity of the cone, while from the analytic point of view, the major step is to prove the full Schauder estimates without having a second derivative bound. The paper is organized into three parts: In the first one, the author proves short time existence and reduces the defining equation of IMCF (given in Theorem 1) to a scalar parabolic Neumann problem. The second part is concerned with a priori estimates for solutions to this problem, in particular the essential bound of the slope of the height function, and it is shown that the convexity of the cone can be used to control this slope. In the third and last part Hölder estimates are obtained, allowing for the proof of long time existence and convergence to a piece of the round sphere.