Communications in Analysis and Geometry

Volume 31 (2023)

Number 1

Avoidance for set-theoretic solutions of mean-curvature-type flows

Pages: 31 – 67

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4310/CAG.2023.v31.n1.a2

Authors

Or Hershkovits (Institute of Mathematics, Hebrew University, Givat Ram, Jerusalem, Israel)

Brian White (Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, Stanford, California, U.S.A.)

Abstract

We give a self-contained treatment of set-theoretic subsolutions to flow by mean curvature, or, more generally, to flow by mean curvature plus an ambient vector field. The ambient space can be any smooth Riemannian manifold. Most importantly, we show that if two such set-theoretic subsolutions are initially disjoint, then they remain disjoint provided one of the subsolutions is compact; previously, this was only known for Euclidean space (with no ambient vectorfield). We also give a simple proof of a version of Ilmanen’s interpolation theorem.

Received 12 September 2018

Accepted 7 August 2020

Published 21 September 2023