Asymptotics for the level set equation near a maximum

Degenerate elliptic equations (35J70) Higher-dimensional and -codimensional surfaces in Euclidean and related (n)-spaces (53A07) Methods of global Riemannian geometry, including PDE methods; curvature restrictions (53C21) Heat and other parabolic equation methods for PDEs on manifolds (58J35)

Abstract: We give asymptotics for the level set equation for mean curvature flow on a convex domain near the point where it attains a maximum. It is known that solutions are not necessarily

C^{3},

and we recover this result and construct non-smooth solutions which are

C^{3} .

We also construct solutions having prescribed behavior near the maximum. We do this by analyzing the asymptotics for rescaled mean curvature flow converging to a stationary sphere.

Review text

The interesting paper under review studies asymptotics for the level set equation. Precisely, given a smooth bounded mean-convex domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^{n+1},\) the level set equation on \(\Omega\) is a degenerate elliptic boundary value problem searching for a function \(t\colon\ \Omega\to\mathbb{R},\) that vanishes on \(\partial\Omega\) and satisfies \[ |\nabla t|\text{div}\left(\dfrac{\nabla t}{|\nabla t|}\right)=-1\quad \text{in}\ \Omega. \] For a solution \(t,\) the level sets \(M_\tau=\{x\in\Omega\colon\ t(x)=\tau\}\) form a mean curvature flow starting from \(M_0=\partial\Omega.\) In the case of bounded convex domain \(\Omega,\) it was proved in [\textit{G. Huisken}, J. Differential Geom. 20, No. 1, 237--266 (1984; Zbl 0556.53001)] that the mean curvature flow \(\{M_\tau\}\) starting from \(\partial\Omega\) contracts smoothly to a single point \(x_0\in\Omega\) at some finite time \(T\). If \(\Omega\) is a convex \textit{planar} domain, then the solution of the level set equation is always \(C^3\)-smooth as proved in [\textit{R.V. Kohn} and \textit{S. Serfaty}, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 59, No. 3, 344--407 (2006; Zbl 1206.53072)]. This result does not hold in higher dimensions as it follows from [\textit{N. Sesum}, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 61, No. 4, 464--485 (2008; Zbl 1143.53066)] where it is shown that if \(n\geq 2\) then there exists a convex domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) for which the solution \(t\) is not three times continuously differentiable. That result is obtained by analyzing the rate of convergence of a rescaled mean curvature flow \((T-\tau)^{-1/2}M_\tau\) and proving existence of solutions for which this rescaled flow converges to the sphere \((T-\tau)^{1/n}.\) In the paper under review, the author recovers this result and extend it by describing all possible rates of convergence for the rescaled mean curvature flow over the sphere. As a result, the first terms are described of all possible Taylor expansions of a solution \(t\) to the level set equation on a convex domain \(\Omega\) at the point where it attains the maximum. Moreover, solutions with the prescribed asymptotics are constructed.

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