Monotonicity of the first eigenvalue of the Laplace and the $p$-Laplace operators under a forced mean curvature flow

Abstract

In this paper, we would like to give an answer to \textbf{Problem 1} below issued firstly in [J. Mao, Eigenvalue estimation and some results on finite topological type, Ph.D. thesis, IST-UTL, 2013]. In fact, by imposing some conditions on the mean curvature of the initial hypersurface and the coefficient function of the forcing term of a forced mean curvature flow considered here, we can obtain that the first eigenvalues of the Laplace and the $p$-Laplace operators are monotonic under this flow. Surprisingly, during this process, we get an interesting byproduct, that is, without any complicated constraint, we can give lower bounds for the first nonzero closed eigenvalue of the Laplacian provided additionally the second fundamental form of the initial hypersurface satisfies a pinching condition.