Evolution equation of the Gauss curvature under hypersurface flows and its applications

In this paper, we derive evolution equation of the integral of the Gauss curvature on an evolving hypersurface. As an application, we obtain a monotone quantity on the level surface of the potential function on a 3-dimensional steady gradient Ricci soliton with positive sectional curvature, and prove that such a soliton is rotationally symmetric outside of a compact set under a curvature decaying assumption. Along the way we will also apply our evolution equation to some other cases.