Mean curvature and the heat equation (Q1323411)

Let \(D\) be an open, bounded and connected set in Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^ m\) \((m = 2,3,\dots)\) with a \(C^ 3\) boundary \(\partial D\). Suppose \(D\) has temperature 1 at time \(t = 0\), while \(\partial D\) is kept at temperature 0 for all time \(t > 0\). Let \(Q_ D(t)\) denote the amount of heat in \(D\) at time \(t\). We show that \[ Q_ D(t) = | D|_ m - 2(t/\pi)^{1/2} | \partial D|_{m-1} + 2^{-1}(m - 1)t \int_{\partial D} H(s)ds + O(t^{3/2}), \] as \(t \to 0\), where \(| D|_ m\) denotes the volume of \(D\), \(| \partial D|_{m-1}\) denotes the area of \(\partial D\), and \(H(s)\) is the mean curvature at \(s \in \partial D\) (\(H(s) = 1\) for the unit ball in \(\mathbb{R}^ m\)). We obtain pointwise estimates for the solution of the heat equation near the boundary using the probabilistic representation of the solution; the remainder estimate relies upon detailed properties of the Brownian meander.