Session S02 - Diverse Aspects of Elliptic PDEs and Related Problems

Wednesday, July 14, 18:00 ~ 18:30 UTC-3

Short-time existence for the network flow

Mariel Saez

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile   -   This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This paper contains a new proof of the short-time existence for the flow by curvature of a network of curves in the plane. Appearing initially in metallurgy and as a model for the evolution of grain boundaries, this flow was later treated by Brakke using varifold methods. There is good reason to treat this problem by a direct PDE approach, but doing so requires one to deal with the singular nature of the PDE at the vertices of the network. This was handled in cases of increasing generality by Bronsard-Reitich [5], Mantegazza-Novaga- Tortorelli and eventually, in the most general case of irregular networks by Ilmanen- Neves-Schulze. Although the present paper proves a result similar to the one in the paper by Ilmanen- Neves-Schulze, the method here provides substantially more detailed information about how an irregular network ‘resolves’ into a regular one. Either approach relies on the existence of self-similar expanding solutions found in previous work.

Joint work with Joint with Jorge Lira, Rafe Mazzeo and Alessandra Pluda.

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