Formation of singularities in the motion of plane curves under hyperbolic mean curvature flow

This paper concerns the hyperbolic mean curvature flow (HMCF) for plane curves. A quasilinear wave equation is derived and studied for the motion of plane curves under the HMCF. Based on this, we investigate the formation of singularities in the motion of these curves. In particular, we prove that the motion under the HMCF of periodic plane curves with small variation on one period and small initial velocity in general blows up and singularities develop in finite time. Some blowup results have been obtained and the estimates on the life-span of the solutions are given.     

Expanding convex immersed closed plane curves

We study the evolution driven by curvature of a given convex immersed closed plane curve. We show that it will converge to a self-similar solution eventually. This self-similar solution may or may not contain singularities. In case it does, we also have estimate on the curvature blow-up rate.     

Self-similar solutions for the anisotropic affine curve shortening problem

Similarity between the roles of the group on the equation for self-similar solutions of the anisotropic affine curve shortening problem and of the conformal group of on the Nirenberg problem for prescribed scalar curvature is explored. Sufficient conditions for the existence of affine self-similar curves are established. Received June 26, 1999 / Accepted January 28, 2000 / Published online December 8, 2000     

Motion by curvature of planar curves with end points moving freely on a line

This paper deals with the motion by curvature of planar curves having end points moving freely along a line with fixed contact angles to this line. We first prove the existence and uniqueness of self-similar shrinking solution. Then we show that the curve shrinks to a point in a self-similar manner, if initially the curve is a graph.     

Application of Andrews and Green-Osher inequalities to nonlocal flow of convex plane curves

We shall apply certain inequalities by Andrews and Green-Osher to area-preserving and length-preserving flows of convex plane curves and show that, if we have bound on the curvature, the evolving curves will converge to a round circle.     

The condition on the stability of stationary lines in a curvature flow in the whole plane

The long time behavior of a curve in the whole plane moving by a curvature flow is studied. Studying the Cauchy problem, we deal with moving curves represented by entire graphs on the x-axis. Here the initial curves are given by bounded functions on the x-axis. It is proved that the solution converges uniformly to the solution of the Cauchy problem of the heat equation with the same initial value. The difference is of order O(t−1/2) as time goes to infinity. The proof is based on the decay estimates for the derivatives of the solution. By virtue of the stability results for the heat equation, our result gives the sufficient and necessary condition on the stability of constant solutions that represent stationary lines of the curvature flow in the whole plane.     

A weighted curvature flow for shape deformation

In this paper we shall discuss a weighted curvature flow for a regular curve in the 2D Euclidean space. The weighted curvature flow for planar curves is a generalization of the well-known curvature flow discussed by Gage, Hamilton and Grayson. Under a suitable weighted curvature flow, convex curves will remain convex in the deformation process. However, the curve may not converge to a round point for general weights. Indeed, for a nonnegative weight function ω(u) with k isolated zeros, a curve will converge to a limiting k-polygon. The weighted curvature flow will have many useful properties which have applications to image processing. We shall also present some numerical simulations to illustrate how curves deform under the weighted curvature flow with different weight functions ω(u). Moreover, our algorithm is very effective and stable. The approximation of higher derivatives in our new algorithm only involve in the neighboring points.     

Non-uniqueness of self-similar shrinking curves for an anisotropic curvature flow

In this paper, we consider self-similar solutions for an anisotropic curvature flow equation in the plane. For some (nonsymmetric) interfacial energy, we show that there exists a self-similar curve which is not a local minimizer of the entropy under the area constraint. As its result, we obtain non-uniqueness of self-similar solutions for the anisotropic flow.     

Well‐posedness of a parabolic free boundary problem driven by diffusion and surface tension

Well‐posedness and regularity results are shown for a class of free boundary problems consisting of diffusion on a free domain where the boundary movement depends on its mean curvature of the boundary and the diffusion on the boundary, and initial conditions are radially symmetric. Short‐time existence and uniqueness of solutions in a suitable Sobolev space are shown using a fixed‐point argument. Higher regularity is a posteriori. Finally, it is shown that solutions exist globally in time and converge to equilibrium if the boundary movement depends on the mean curvature of the boundary and diffusion in a specific way. A mathematical model describing the swelling of a cell due to osmosis is treated as an example. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motion by weighted mean curvature is affine invariant

Suppose curves are moving by curvature in a plane, but one embeds the plane in R³ and looks at the plane from an angle. Then circles shrinking to a round point would appear to be ellipses shrinking to an “elliptical point,” and the surface energy would appear to be anisotropic as would the mobility. The result of this paper is that if one uses the apparent surface energy and the apparent mobility, then the motion by weighted curvature with mobility in the apparent plane is the same as motion by curvature in the original plane but then viewed from the angle. This result applies not only to the isotropic case but to arbitrary surface energy functions and mobilities in the plane, to surfaces in 3-space, and (in the case that the surface energy function is twice differentiable) to the case of motion viewed through distorted lenses (i.e., diffeomorphisms) as well. This result is to be contrasted with an earlier result [4], which states that for area-preserving affine transformations of the plane where the energy and mobility are not also transformed, motion by curvature to the power 1/3 (rather than 1) is invariant.