Mean curvature flows in the sphere via phase transitions

Seminar: 
Geometric Analysis and Application
Event time: 
Friday, February 3, 2023 - 2:00pm
Location: 
LOM 215
Speaker: 
Jingwen Chen
Speaker affiliation: 
University of Chicago
Event description: 

In this talk, we will discuss some solutions of the mean curvature flow (MCF) of surfaces in the 3-sphere. We will recall a generalized notion of MCF introduced by Brakke in the 70s, as well as its regularization by a parabolic partial differential equation arising in the theory of phase transitions. We will talk about some existence problems for this parabolic equation, and use them to construct MCFs that join minimal surfaces of low area in the 3-sphere, and some recent progress on the spaces of MCFs using Morse-Bott theory.  This is joint work with Pedro Gaspar (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile).