A numerical stability analysis of mean curvature flow of noncompact hypersurfaces with type-II curvature blowup

Abstract

We present a numerical study of the local stability of mean curvature flow (MCF) of rotationally symmetric, complete noncompact hypersurfaces with type-II curvature blowup. Our numerical analysis employs a novel overlap method that constructs ‘numerically global’ (i.e., with spatial domain arbitrarily large but finite) flow solutions with initial data covering analytically distinct regions. Our numerical results show that for certain prescribed families of perturbations, there are two classes of initial data that lead to distinct behaviours under MCF. Firstly, there is a ‘near’ class of initial data which lead to the same singular behaviour as an unperturbed solution; in particular, the curvature at the tip of the hypersurface blows up at a type-II rate no slower than (T − t)−1. Secondly, there is a ‘far’ class of initial data which lead to solutions developing a local type-I nondegenerate neckpinch under MCF. These numerical findings further suggest the existence of a ‘critical’ class of initial data which conjecturally lead to MCF of noncompact hypersurfaces forming local type-II degenerate neckpinches with the highest curvature blowup rate strictly slower than (T − t)−1.