English

The streamlines of $\infty$-harmonic functions obey the inverse mean curvature flow

Analysis of PDEs 2023-09-18 v1

Abstract

Given an \infty-harmonic function uu_\infty on a domain ΩR2\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^2, consider the function w=loguw = -\log |\nabla u_\infty|. If uC2(Ω)u_\infty \in C^2(\Omega) with u0\nabla u_\infty \neq 0 and u0\nabla |\nabla u_\infty| \neq 0, then it is easy to check that (1) the streamlines of uu_\infty are the level sets of ww and (2) ww solves the level set formulation of the inverse mean curvature flow. For less regular solutions, neither statement is true in general, but even so, ww is still a weak solution of the inverse mean curvature flow under far weaker assumptions. This is proved through an approximation of uu_\infty by pp-harmonic functions, the use of conjugate pp'-harmonic functions, and the known connection of the latter with the inverse mean curvature flow. A statement about the regularity of u|\nabla u_\infty| arises as a by-product.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2108.05807,
  title  = {The streamlines of $\infty$-harmonic functions obey the inverse mean curvature flow},
  author = {Roger Moser},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.05807},
  year   = {2023}
}