Blow up dynamics for the hyperbolic vanishing mean curvature flow of surfaces asymptotic to the Simons cone (Q824416)

Summary: In this article, we establish the existence of a family of hypersurfaces \((\Gamma(t))_{0< t \leq T}\) that evolve by the vanishing mean curvature flow in Minkowski space and that, as \(t\) tends to \(0\), blow up towards a hypersurface that behaves like the Simons cone both near the origin and at infinity. This issue amounts to singularity formation for a second-order quasilinear wave equation. Our constructive approach consists in proving the existence of finite-time blow up solutions of this hyperbolic equation of the form \(u(t,x) \sim t^{\nu+1} Q( {x} / {t^{\nu+1}}) \), where \(Q\) is a stationary solution and \(\nu\) an arbitrarily large positive irrational number. Our approach roughly follows that of \textit{J. Krieger} et al. [Invent. Math. 171, No. 3, 543--615 (2008; Zbl 1139.35021); Adv. Math. 221, No. 5, 1445--1521 (2009; Zbl 1183.35203); Duke Math. J. 147, No. 1, 1--53 (2009; Zbl 1170.35066)]. However, in contrast to these works, the equation to be handled in this article is quasilinear. This brings about a number of difficulties to overcome.