On the flow of non-axisymmetric perturbations of cylinders via surface diffusion (Q907808)

The surface diffusion flow is given by \[ V(t)=\Delta_{\Gamma(t)}H_{\Gamma(t)}, \quad \Gamma(0)=\Gamma_0. \eqno(*) \] Here \(\Gamma=\{\Gamma(t): t\geq 0\}\) is a family of hypersurfaces, \(V(t)\) denotes the velocity in the normal direction of \(\Gamma(t)\) at time \(t\), and \(\Delta_{\Gamma(t)}\) and \(H_{\Gamma(t)}\) are the Laplace-Beltrami operator and the mean curvature of \(\Gamma(t)\) respectively. Here the hypersurfaces are assumed to be embedded with \(\Gamma(t)\) enclosing a region \(\Omega(t)\), and the normal direction is taken to be the outer normal direction. A basic fact of this flow is that the volume \(\Omega(t)\) is preserved, while the area of \(\Gamma(t)\) decreases, assuming these quantities are finite. Thus in the absence of geometric constraints, spheres are the expected limits of the flow, at least when the initial hypersurface \(\Gamma_0\) is close to a sphere in a suitable sense. Such a result has been proved by \textit{G. Simonett} [Differ. Integral Equ. 14, No. 8, 1005--1014 (2001; Zbl 1161.35429)] and \textit{G. Wheeler} [Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 44, No. 1--2, 131--151 (2012; Zbl 1238.53043)]. Here the authors consider the flow \((*)\) starting from initial surfaces \(\Gamma_0\) which are perturbations of the infinite cylinder \(C_r=\{(x,y,z)\in{\mathbb{R}}^3:y^2+z^2=r^2, \;x\in{\mathbb{R}} \}\) with \(r>0\). The main results are (a) the existence, uniqueness and regularity of solutions for initial surfaces that are sufficiently smooth perturbations of \(C_r\); (b) the existence, uniqueness and regularity of solutions for initial surfaces that are sufficiently smooth perturbations of \(C_r\) subject to periodic or Neumann-type boundary conditions in the axial direction; (c) nonlinear stability and instability results for \(C_r\) with respect to perturbations subject to periodic or Neumann-type boundary conditions in the axial direction. The authors first obtain an explicit formulation of the problem for surfaces parametrized as graphs of a height function \(\rho\) over \(C_r\). The function \(\rho\) satisfies a fourth order quasilinear parabolic equation, for which well-posedness is established, using recent results for maximal regularity on uniformly regular Riemannian manifolds. In previous work [SIAM J. Math. Anal. 45, No. 5, 2834--2869 (2013; Zbl 1282.35218)] the authors showed that for the flow of axisymmetric and \(2\pi\)-periodic perturbations \(\Gamma_0\) of \(C_r\), the equilibria of \((*)\) are exactly cylinders, \(2k\pi\)-periodic unduloids and nodoids. In addition, they proved that the cylinders \(C_r\) are stable for \(r>1\), unstable for \(r<1\), and that a subcritical bifurcation of equilibria occurs at \(r=1\) with the bifurcating branch consisting exactly of the family of \(2\pi\)-periodic unduloids. Here they show that these results remain true for nonaxisymmetric perturbations subject to periodic or Neumann-type boundary conditions in the axial direction. In particular, they show that small \(2\pi\)-periodic perturbations \(\Gamma_0\) of \(C_r\) with \(r>1\) exist globally and converge exponentially fast to a nearby cylinder. This result is proved using a centre-manifold argument.