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# Smooth Geometric Evolutions of Hypersurfaces

## 1. Introduction

In one of his last papers Ennio De Giorgi conjectured that any compact $`n`$–dimensional hypersurface in $`^{n+1}`$, evolving by the gradient flow of certain functionals depending on sufficiently high derivatives of the curvature does not develop singularities during the flow (, Sec. 5, Conj. 2 — see  for an English translation).
This result is central in his program to approximate singular geometric flows with sequences of smooth ones.

Representing hypersurfaces in $`^{n+1}`$ as immersions $`\phi :M^{n+1}`$, we consider the gradient flow associated to the following functionals

$$_m(\phi )=_M1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu $$

where $`\mu `$ and $``$ are respectively the canonical measure and the Levi–Civita connection on the Riemannian manifold $`(M,g)`$, where the metric $`g`$ is obtained by pulling back on $`M`$ the usual metric of $`^{n+1}`$ via $`\phi `$. We denote with $`^m`$ the $`m`$–th iterated covariant derivative and with $`\nu `$ a unit normal local vector field to the hypersurface. Finally, $`\mathrm{A}`$ and $`\mathrm{H}`$ are respectively the second fundamental form and the mean curvature of the hypersurface.
These functionals are strictly related to the ones proposed by De Giorgi since, roughly speaking, the derivative of the normal is the curvature of $`M`$. Though not exactly the same, they can play the same role in the approximation process he suggested. In the end of the paper we discuss some other possible functionals and, in particular, the original De Giorgi conjecture.

Our main result is that if the order of derivation $`m`$ is strictly larger than $`\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$ (where $`\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$ denotes the integer part of $`n/2`$), then singularities cannot occur.

The simplest case $`n=1`$ and $`m=1`$ is concerned with curves in the plane evolving by the gradient flow of

(1.1)
$$_1(\gamma )=_{\mathrm{SS}^1}1+k^2ds$$

since the curvature $`k`$ of a curve $`\gamma :\mathrm{SS}^1^2`$ satisfies $`k^2=|\nu |^2`$. The global regularity in this case was showed by Polden in the papers  which have been a starting point for our work. Wen in  found results similar to Polden’s ones, in considering the flow for $`_{\mathrm{SS}^1}k^2𝑑s`$ of curves with a fixed length.

The very first step in attacking our problem is an analysis of the first variation of the functionals $`_m`$, which gives rise to a quasilinear system of partial differential equations on the manifold $`M`$.
The small time existence and uniqueness of a smooth flow is a particular case of a very general result of Polden proven in . Then the long time existence is guaranteed as soon we have suitable a priori estimates on the flow.

In the study of the mean curvature flow of a hypersurface $`\phi :M\times [0,T)^{n+1}`$,

$$\frac{\phi }{t}=\mathrm{H}\nu =\mathrm{\Delta }_t\phi ,$$

(which is of second order) via techniques such as varifolds, level sets, viscosity solutions (see ), the maximum principle is the key tool to get comparison results and estimates on solutions. In our case, even if $`m=1`$, the first variation and hence the corresponding parabolic problem turns out to be of order higher than two, precisely of order $`2m+2`$, so we have to deal with equations of fourth order at least. This fact has the relevant consequence that we cannot employ the maximum principle to get pointwise estimates and to compare two solutions, thus losing a whole bunch of geometric results holding for the mean curvature flow. In particular, we cannot expect that an initially embedded hypersurface remains embedded during the flow, since self–intersections can appear in finite time (an example is given by Giga and Ito in ). By these reasons, techniques based on the description of the hypersurfaces as level sets of functions seems of difficult application in this case and therefore we adopt a parametric approach as in the work of Huisken .

Despite the large literature on the mean curvature flow, fourth or even higher order flows appeared only recently. Besides the cited works of Polden and Wen, we quote the work of Escher, Mayer and Simonett  on the surface diffusion flow (see also the references therein)

$$\frac{\phi }{t}=(\mathrm{\Delta }_t\mathrm{H})\nu $$

and of Simonett  on the gradient flow of the Willmore functional (see )

$$𝒲(\phi )=_M|\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu $$

defined on surfaces immersed in $`^3`$. In these papers it is shown the long term existence and convergence of the flow for initial data which are $`C^{2,\alpha }`$–close to a sphere.
In the article of Chruściel , the global existence of a fourth order flow of metrics on a two–dimensional Riemannian manifold is applied to construct solutions of Einstein vacuum equations representing an isolated gravitational system, called Robinson–Trautman metrics.
Another problem considered by Polden in  is the conformal evolution of a metric $`g`$ on a two–dimensional manifold $`M`$ by the gradient flow of the functional

$$(g)=_MF(R)𝑑\mu $$

where $`R`$ is the scalar curvature of $`(M,g)`$ and $`F`$ is an even, smooth and strictly convex function.
Finally, in a very recent paper  Kuwert and Schätzle study the global existence and regularity of the gradient flow of the Willmore functional for general initial data.
Our work borrows from  the basic idea of using interpolation inequalities as a tool to get a priori estimates.

We want to remark here that a strong motivation for the study of these flows is the fact that, in general, regularity is not shared by second order flows, with the notable exceptions of the evolution by mean curvature of embedded curves in the plane (see ) and of convex hypersurfaces (see ). So our result opens the possibility to approximate canonically singular flows with smooth ones by singular perturbation arguments (see  and Section 9).

In order to show regularity, a good substitute of the pointwise estimates coming from the maximum principle, are suitable estimates on the second fundamental form in Sobolev spaces, using Gagliardo–Nirenberg interpolation type inequalities for tensors. Since the constants involved in these inequalities depends on the Sobolev constants and these latter on the geometry of the hypersurface where the tensors are defined, before doing estimates we absolutely need some uniform control independent of time on these constants. In  these controls are obvious as the constants depend only on the length, on the contrary, much more work is needed in , because of the richer geometry of surfaces.

In our case, we will see that if $`m`$ is large enough, the functional $`_m`$, which decreases during the flow, controls the $`L^p`$ norm of the second fundamental form for some exponent $`p`$ larger than the dimension. This fact, combined with a universal Sobolev type inequality due to Michael and Simon , where the dependence of the constants on the curvature is made explicit, allows us to get an uniform bound on the Sobolev constants of the evolving hypersurfaces and then to obtain time–independent estimates on curvature and all its derivatives in $`L^2`$. These bounds imply in turn the desired pointwise estimates and the long time existence and regularity of the flow.

In the last section we will discuss some possible extensions of our results, some open problems and the related conjectures of De Giorgi.

###### Acknowledgement.

We are grateful to Gerhard Huisken for many discussions about geometric flows during his visit at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. Moreover, we wish to thank Luigi Ambrosio for his constant encouragement and invaluable help in several occasions.

Our work would have been impossible without the enlightening mathematical insight of Ennio De Giorgi. This paper is dedicated to his memory.

## 2. Notation and Preliminaries

We devote this section to introduce the basic notations and facts about differentiable and Riemannian manifolds we need in the paper, a good reference for this introduction is  or the first part of .

The main objects of the paper are $`n`$–dimensional closed hypersurfaces immersed in $`^{n+1}`$, that is, pairs $`(M,\phi )`$ where $`M`$ is an $`n`$–dimensional smooth manifold, compact, connected with empty boundary, and a smooth map $`\phi :M^{n+1}`$ such that the rank of $`d\phi `$ is everywhere equal to $`n`$.

The manifold $`M`$ gets in a natural way a metric tensor $`g`$ turning it in a Riemannian manifold $`(M,g)`$, by pulling back the standard scalar product of $`^{n+1}`$ with the immersion map $`\phi `$.

Taking local coordinates around $`pM`$ given by a chart $`F:^nUM`$, we identify the map $`\phi `$ with its expression in coordinates $`\phi F:^nU^{n+1}`$, then we have local basis of $`T_pM`$ and $`T_p^{}M`$, respectively given by vectors $`\left\{\frac{}{x_i}\right\}`$ and covectors $`\{dx_j\}`$.

We will denote vectors on $`M`$ by $`X=X^i`$, which means $`X=X^i\frac{}{x_i}`$, covectors by $`Y=Y_j`$, that is, $`Y=Y_jdx_j`$ and a general mixed tensor with $`T=T_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}`$, where the indices refer to the local basis.

Sometimes we will need also to consider tensors along $`M`$, viewing it as a submanifold of $`^{n+1}`$ via the map $`\phi `$, in that case we will use the Greek indices to denote the components of such tensors in the canonical basis $`\{e_\alpha \}`$ of $`^{n+1}`$, for instance, given a vector field $`X`$ along $`M`$, not necessarily tangent, we will have $`X=X^\alpha e_\alpha `$.

In all the paper the convention to sum over repeated indices will be adopted.

The inner product on $`M`$, extended to tensors, is given by

$$g(T,S)=g_{i_1s_1}\mathrm{}g_{i_ks_k}g^{j_1z_1}\mathrm{}g^{j_lz_l}T_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}S_{z_1\mathrm{}z_l}^{s_1\mathrm{}s_k}$$

where $`g_{ij}`$ is the matrix of the coefficients of the metric tensor in the local coordinates and $`g^{ij}`$ is its inverse. Clearly, the norm of a tensor is

$$|T|=\sqrt{g(T,T)}.$$

The scalar product in $`^{n+1}`$ will be denoted with $`|`$. As the metric $`g`$ is obtained pulling it back with $`\phi `$, we have

$$g_{ij}(x)=\frac{\phi (x)}{x_i}|\frac{\phi (x)}{x_j}.$$

The canonical measure induced by the metric $`g`$ is given by $`\mu =\sqrt{G}^n`$ where $`G=det(g_{ij})`$ and $`^n`$ is the standard Lebesgue measure on $`^n`$.

The second fundamental form $`\mathrm{A}=h_{ij}`$ of $`M`$ is the 2–tensor defined as follows:

$$h_{ij}(x)=\nu (x)|\frac{^2\phi (x)}{x_ix_j},$$

the mean curvature $`\mathrm{H}`$ is the trace of $`\mathrm{A}`$,

(2.1)
$$\mathrm{H}(x)=g^{ij}(x)h_{ij}(x).$$

The induced covariant derivative on $`(M,g)`$ of a vector field $`X`$ is given by

$$_jX^i=\frac{}{x_j}X^i+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^iX^k$$

where the Christoffel symbols $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i`$ are expressed by the following formula,

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i=\frac{1}{2}g^{il}\left(\frac{}{x_j}g_{kl}+\frac{}{x_k}g_{jl}\frac{}{x_l}g_{jk}\right).$$

In all the paper the covariant derivative $`T`$ of a tensor $`T=T_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}`$ will be denoted by $`_sT_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}=(T)_{sj_1\mathrm{}j_l}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}`$.

With $`^mT`$ we will mean the $`k`$–th iterated covariant derivative of a tensor $`T`$.

We recall that the gradient $`f`$ of a function and the divergence $`divX`$ of a vector field at a point $`p(M,g)`$ are defined respectively by

$$g(f(p),v)=df_p(v)vT_pM$$

and

$$divX=\text{Trace }X=_iX^i=\frac{}{x_i}X^i+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ik}^iX^k.$$

Notice that considering $`M`$ as a submanifold of $`^{n+1}`$, if $`\{e_i\}^{n+1}`$ is an orthonormal basis of $`T_pM`$ we can express the divergence of $`X`$ as

$$divX(p)=g(e_i,_{e_i}X)=e_i|_{e_i}^MX=_{e_i}^MX|e_i=_{e_i}X|e_i$$

where $`^M`$ denotes the projection on $`T_pM`$ of the covariant derivative of $`^{n+1}`$.
Using this last expression we can define the divergence of a general, not necessarily tangent, vector field $`X`$ along $`M`$ as a Riemannian submanifold of $`^{n+1}`$.
Such definition is useful in view of the following tangential divergence formula (see , Chap. 2, Sec. 7),

(2.2)
$$_MdivXd\mu =_M\nu |X\mathrm{H}𝑑\mu $$

holding for every vector field $`X`$ along $`M`$.
Notice that the right term is well defined since, by definition (2.1), $`\mathrm{H}\nu `$ is independent of the choice of the local unit normal $`\nu `$. Moreover, if $`X`$ is a tangent vector field we recover the usual divergence theorem

$$_MdivXd\mu =0.$$

The Laplacian $`\mathrm{\Delta }T`$ of a tensor $`T`$ is

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T=g^{ij}_i_jT.$$

The Riemann tensor, the Ricci tensor and the scalar curvature are expressible via the second fundamental form as follows,

$`\mathrm{R}_{ijkl}=`$ $`h_{ik}h_{jl}h_{il}h_{jk},`$
$`\mathrm{Ric}_{ij}=`$ $`\mathrm{H}h_{ij}h_{il}g^{lk}h_{kj},`$
$`R=`$ $`\mathrm{H}^2|\mathrm{A}|^2.`$
Hence, the formulas for the interchange of covariant derivatives, which involve the Riemann tensor, become

$$_i_jX^s_j_iX^s=\mathrm{R}_{ijkl}g^{ks}X^l=\mathrm{R}_{ijl}^sX^l=\left(h_{ik}h_{jl}h_{il}h_{jk}\right)g^{ks}X^l,$$

(2.3)
$$_i_jY_k_j_iY_k=\mathrm{R}_{ijkl}g^{ls}Y_s=\mathrm{R}_{ijk}^sY_s=\left(h_{ik}h_{jl}h_{il}h_{jk}\right)g^{ls}Y_s.$$

The Codazzi equations

$$_ih_{jk}=_jh_{ik}=_kh_{ij}$$

imply the following identity (see ) which will be crucial in the sequel,

(2.4)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }h_{ij}=_i_j\mathrm{H}+\mathrm{H}h_{il}g^{ls}h_{sj}|\mathrm{A}|^2h_{ij}.$$

Also fundamental will be the Gauss–Weingarten relations

(2.5)
$$\frac{^2\phi }{x_ix_j}=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^k\frac{\phi }{x_k}h_{ij}\nu ,\frac{}{x_j}\nu =h_{jl}g^{ls}\frac{\phi }{x_s},$$

which easily imply $`|\nu |=|\mathrm{A}|`$.

Now we introduce some non standard notation which will be useful for the computations of the following sections.

In all the paper we will write $`TS`$, following Hamilton , to denote a tensor formed by contraction on some indices of the tensors $`T`$ and $`S`$ using the coefficients $`g^{ij}`$.
Abusing a little the notation, if $`T_1,\mathrm{},T_l`$ is a finite family of tensors (here $`l`$ is not an index of the tensor $`T`$), with the symbol

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{l}{}}T_i$$

we will mean $`T_1T_2\mathrm{}T_l`$ .

We will use the symbol $`𝔭_s(T_1,\mathrm{},T_l)`$ for a polynomial in the tensors $`T_1,\mathrm{},T_l`$ and their iterated covariant derivatives with the $``$ product like

$$𝔭_s(T_1,\mathrm{},T_l)=\underset{i_1+\mathrm{}+i_l=s}{}c_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}^{i_1}T_1\mathrm{}^{i_l}T_l,$$

where the $`c_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}`$ are some real constants.
Notice that every tensor $`T_i`$ must be present in every additive term of $`𝔭_s(T_1,\mathrm{},T_l)`$ and there are not repetitions.
We will use instead the symbol $`𝔮^s`$ when the tensors involved are all $`\mathrm{A}`$ or $`\nu `$, repetitions are allowed and in every additive term of there must be present every argument of $`𝔮^s`$, for instance,

$$𝔮^s(\nu ,\mathrm{A})=\left(\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}^{i_k}(\nu )\underset{l=1}{\overset{M}{}}^{j_l}\mathrm{A}\right)\text{ with }N\text{}M1\text{.}$$

The order $`s`$ denotes the sum

$$s=\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}(i_k+1)+\underset{l=1}{\overset{M}{}}(j_l+1).$$

###### Remark 2.1.

Supposing that $`𝔮^s`$ is completely contracted, that is, there are no free indices and we get a function, then the order $`s`$ has the following strong geometric meaning: if we consider the family of homothetic immersions $`\lambda \phi :M^{n+1}`$ for $`\lambda >0`$, they have associated normal $`\nu ^\lambda `$, metric $`g^\lambda `$, connection $`^\lambda `$ and second form $`\mathrm{A}^\lambda `$ satisfying the following rescaling equations,

$$(^\lambda )^i\nu ^\lambda =^i\nu (^\lambda )^j\mathrm{A}^\lambda =\lambda ^j\mathrm{A},$$

$$(g^\lambda )_{ij}=\lambda ^2g_{ij}(g^\lambda )^{ij}=\lambda ^2g^{ij}.$$

Then every completely contracted polynomial $`𝔮^s`$ in $`\nu `$ and $`\mathrm{A}`$ will have the form

$$(^{i_1}\nu )\mathrm{}(^{i_k}\nu )\mathrm{}(^{i_N}\nu )^{j_1}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{}^{j_l}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{}^{j_M}\mathrm{A}g^{w_1z_1}\mathrm{}g^{w_tz_t}$$

with

$$s=\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}(i_k+1)+\underset{l=1}{\overset{M}{}}(j_l+1)$$

and since the contraction is total it must be

$$t=\frac{1}{2}\left(\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}(i_k+1)+\underset{l=1}{\overset{M}{}}(j_l+2)\right)$$

as the sum between the large brackets give the number of covariant indices in the product above.
By this argument and the rescaling equations above, we see that $`𝔮^s`$ rescales as

$`𝔮^s(^\lambda \nu ^\lambda ,\mathrm{},\mathrm{A}^\lambda )=`$ $`\lambda ^{M2t}𝔮^s(\nu ,\mathrm{},\mathrm{A})`$
$`=`$ $`\lambda ^{\left(_{k=1}^N(i_k+1)+_{l=1}^M(j_l+1)\right)}𝔮^s(\nu ,\mathrm{},\mathrm{A})`$
$`=`$ $`\lambda ^s𝔮^s(\nu ,\mathrm{},\mathrm{A}).`$
By this reason, with a little misuse of language, also when $`𝔮^s`$ is not completely contracted, we will say that $`s`$ is the rescaling order of $`𝔮^s`$.

In most of the following computations only the rescaling order and the arguments of the polynomials involved will be important, so we will avoid to make explicit their inner structure.
An example in this spirit, are the following substitutions that we will often apply

$$𝔭_s(T_1,\mathrm{},T_l)=𝔭_{s+1}(T_1,\mathrm{},T_l)\text{ and }𝔮^z(\nu ,\mathrm{},\mathrm{A})=𝔮^{z+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{},\mathrm{A}).$$

We advise the reader that the polynomials $`𝔭_s`$ and $`𝔮^z`$ could vary from a line to another in a computation by addition of terms with the same rescaling order. Moreover, also the constants could vary between different formulas and from a line to another.

## 3. First Variation

Given an immersion $`\phi :M^{n+1}`$ of a smooth closed hypersurface in $`^{n+1}`$, we consider the following functionals for $`m1`$,

$$_m(\phi )=_M1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu $$

where $`\nu `$ is a local unit normal vector field to $`M`$ and $`|^m\nu |^2`$ means $`_{\alpha =1}^{n+1}|^m\nu ^\alpha |^2`$. The norm $`||`$, the connection $``$ and the measure $`\mu `$ are all relative to the Riemannian metric $`g`$ which is induced on $`M`$ by $`^{n+1}`$ via the immersion $`\phi `$. Notice that these functionals are well defined also without a global unit normal vector field, i. e., $`M`$ is not orientable, because of the modulus.

In this section we are going to analyze the first variation of these functionals. Actually, computing the exact form can be quite long but for our purposes we need only to study some properties of its structure.

Suppose that we have a one parameter family $``$ of immersions $`\phi _t:M^{n+1}`$, with $`\phi _0=\phi `$, we compute

(3.1)
$$\delta _m(\phi )()=\frac{d}{dt}_m(\phi _t)|_{t=0}=\frac{d}{dt}_M1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu _t|_{t=0}$$

where clearly the metric $`g`$, the covariant derivative $``$ and the normal $`\nu `$ depend on $`t`$.
Setting $`X(p)=\frac{}{t}\phi _t(p)|_{t=0}`$ we obtain a vector field along $`M`$ as a submanifold of $`^{n+1}`$ via $`\phi `$. It is well known that

$$\frac{}{t}\mu _t|_{t=0}=\mathrm{H}\nu |X\mu $$

so it follows,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}_m(\phi _t)|_{t=0}=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}|^m\nu |^2d\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu _t}{t}}|_{t=0}\right)+{\displaystyle _M}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}|^m\nu |^2|_{t=0}d\mu `$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}|^m\nu |^2\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\left(g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_mj_m}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}\nu _{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu \right)|_{t=0}d\mu .`$
Then, we need to compute the derivatives in the last term.
For the metric tensor $`g_{ij}`$ we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{ij}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_i}}|{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{X}{x_i}}|{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}+{\displaystyle \frac{X}{x_j}}|{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_i}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_i}}X|{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}X|{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_i}}2X|{\displaystyle \frac{^2\phi }{x_ix_j}}`$
$`=`$ $`a_{ij}(X).`$
Differentiating the formula $`g_{is}g^{sj}=\delta _i^j`$ we get

$$\frac{}{t}g^{ij}=g^{is}\frac{}{t}g_{sl}g^{lj}=g^{is}a_{sl}(X)g^{lj}.$$

The derivative of the normal $`\nu `$ is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\nu =`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{t}}|{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}g^{ij}=\nu |{\displaystyle \frac{^2\phi }{tx_i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}g^{ij}`$
$`=`$ $`\nu |{\displaystyle \frac{X}{x_i}}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}g^{ij}=\nu |X+{\displaystyle \frac{\nu }{x_i}}|X{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_j}}g^{ij}`$
$`=`$ $`\nu |X+\nu ^\alpha X^\alpha =b(X).`$
Finally the derivative of the Christoffel symbols is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{il}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{kl}\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_k}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jl}\right){\displaystyle \frac{}{x_l}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jk}\right)\right\}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g^{il}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}g_{kl}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_k}}g_{jl}{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_l}}g_{jk}\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{il}\left\{_j\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{kl}\right)+_k\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jl}\right)_l\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jk}\right)\right\}`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{il}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{kz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jl}^z+{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{lz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^z+{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{kl}^z+{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{lz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^z{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{kl}^z{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{kz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jl}^z\right\}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{is}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{sz}g^{zl}\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}g_{kl}+{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_k}}g_{jl}{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_l}}g_{jk}\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{il}\left\{_j\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{kl}\right)+_k\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jl}\right)_l\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jk}\right)\right\}`$
$`+g^{il}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{lz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^zg^{is}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{sz}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^z`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{il}\left\{_j\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{kl}\right)+_k\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jl}\right)_l\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{jk}\right)\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}g^{il}\left\{_ja_{kl}(X)+_ka_{jl}(X)_la_{jk}(X)\right\}.`$
Notice that all these derivatives are linear in the field $`X`$, since the $`a_{ij}(X)`$ and $`b(X)`$ are such.

###### Lemma 3.1.

If $`a(X)=\frac{}{t}g`$ is the tensor defined before, for every covariant tensor $`T=T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}`$ we have

$$\frac{}{t}^sT=^s\frac{T}{t}+𝔭_{s1}(T,a(X))$$

where the constants in the polynomials $`𝔭_{s1}(T,a(X))`$ are universal.
Moreover, if the tensor $`T`$ is a function $`f:M^k`$ the last term $`𝔭_{s1}(f,a(X))`$ can be substituted with another polynomial $`\stackrel{~}{𝔭}_{s2}(f,a(X))`$.

###### Proof.

We prove the lemma by induction on $`s1`$.
If $`s=1`$ then

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}_jT_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ji_z}^rT_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{z1}ri_{z+1}\mathrm{}i_l}\right)`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_j}}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ji_z}^r{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{z1}ri_{z+1}\mathrm{}i_l}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ji_z}^rT_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{z1}ri_{z+1}\mathrm{}i_l}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{T}{t}}+Ta(X)`$
by the previous computation, hence

$$\frac{}{t}T=\frac{T}{t}+𝔭_0(T,a(X))$$

and the initial case is proved.
Supposing the lemma holds for $`s1`$, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}^sT=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}(^{s1}T)`$
$`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}^{s1}T\right)+𝔭_0(^{s1}T,a(X))`$
$`=`$ $`\left(^{s1}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{t}}+𝔭_{s2}(T,a(X))\right)`$
$`+𝔭_0(^{s1}T,a(X))`$
$`=`$ $`^s{\displaystyle \frac{T}{t}}+𝔭_{s2}(T,a(X))`$
$`+𝔭_0(^{s1}T,a(X))`$
$`=`$ $`^s{\displaystyle \frac{T}{t}}+𝔭_{s1}(T,a(X))`$
where we set

$$𝔭_{s1}(T,a(X))=𝔭_{s2}(T,a(X))+𝔭_0(^{s1}T,a(X)).$$

By this last formula, it is clear that the constants involved are universal. Moreover, if $`T`$ is a function $`f:M^k`$ then the term $`𝔭_0(f,a(X))`$ vanishes and the same formula says that $`𝔭_{s1}(f,a(X))`$ does not contain $`f`$ without being differentiated. ∎

###### Remark 3.2.

In the following we will omit to underline that all the coefficients of the polynomials $`𝔭_s`$ and $`𝔮^s`$ which will appear are algebraic, that is, they are the result of formal manipulations. In particular, such coefficients are independent of the manifold $`(M,g)`$ where the tensors are defined. This is crucial in view of the geometry–independent estimates we want to obtain.

###### Proposition 3.3.

The derivative

$$\frac{}{t}\left(g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_mj_m}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}\nu _{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu \right)|_{t=0}$$

depends only on the vector field $`X=\frac{}{t}\phi _t|_{t=0}`$ and such dependence is linear.
The first variation of $`_m`$

$$\delta _m(\phi )()=\frac{d}{dt}_m(\phi _t)|_{t=0}$$

is a linear function of the field $`X`$.

###### Proof.

Distributing the derivative in $`t`$ on the terms of the product, we have seen that the derivatives of the metric coefficients depends linearly on $`X`$, it lasts to check the derivative of $`_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}\nu `$.
By the last assertion of Lemma 3.1, we have

$$\frac{}{t}^m\nu =^m\frac{\nu }{t}+𝔭_{m2}(\nu ,a(X))$$

and since $`\frac{\nu }{t}=b(X)`$ we get

$$\frac{}{t}^m\nu =^mb(X)+𝔭_{m2}(\nu ,a(X))$$

which proves the first part of the lemma as $`a(X)`$ and $`b(X)`$ are linear in $`X`$.
The second statement clearly follows by the previous computations and the first part of the lemma. ∎

By this result, we can write $`\delta _m(\phi )()=\delta _m(\phi )(X)`$. Now we want to prove that actually the first variation depends only on the normal component of the field $`X`$, that is, $`\nu |X`$, by linearity, it is clearly sufficient to show that $`\delta _m(\phi )(X)=0`$ for every tangent vector field $`X`$. By the previous proposition, in order to compute the derivative (3.1) we can choose any family $``$ of immersions with $`X=\frac{}{t}\phi _t|_{t=0}`$.

Given a vector field $`X`$ along $`M`$ as a submanifold of $`^{n+1}`$ which is tangent, there exists a tangent vector field $`Y`$ on $`M`$ such that $`d\phi _p(Y(p))=X(p)`$ for every $`pM`$.
Then we consider the smooth flow $`L(p,t):M\times (\epsilon ,\epsilon )M`$ generated by $`Y`$ on $`M`$ as the solution of the ODE’s system

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{}{t}L(p,t)=Y(L(p,t)),\hfill & \\ L(p,0)=p\hfill & \end{array}$$

for every $`pM`$ and $`t(\epsilon ,\epsilon )`$, and we define $`\phi _t(p)=\phi (L(p,t))`$.
Clearly $`\phi _0=\phi `$ and

$$\frac{}{t}\phi _t(p)|_{t=0}=d\phi _{L(p,t)}\left(\frac{}{t}L(p,t)\right)|_{t=0}=d\phi _p(Y(p))=X(p),$$

hence, using the family $`=\{\phi _t\}`$ we have

$$\delta _m(\phi )(X)=\frac{d}{dt}_m(\phi _t)|_{t=0}.$$

If $`g_t`$ is the metric tensor on $`M`$ induced by $`^{n+1}`$ via the immersion $`\phi _t`$, then the Riemannian manifolds $`(M,g_t)`$ and $`(M,g)`$ are isometric for every $`t(\epsilon ,\epsilon )`$, being $`I(,t)=\phi ^1\phi _t:(M,g_t)(M,g)`$ an isometry between them. Since the functional $`_m`$ is invariant by isometry, $`_m(\phi _t)`$ does not depend on $`t`$ and its derivative is zero.
By the previous discussion we have then the following proposition.

###### Proposition 3.4.

The first variation $`\delta _m(\phi )(X)`$ depends only on $`\nu |X`$.

This means that we can suppose that $`X`$ is a normal field in studying $`\delta _m(\phi )(X)`$, hence we can strengthen the previous computations as follows,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{ij}=`$ $`a_{ij}(X)=2X|{\displaystyle \frac{^2\phi }{x_ix_j}}=\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\nu |Xh_{ij}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g^{ij}=`$ $`g^{is}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{sl}g^{lj}=2\nu |Xh^{ij}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\nu =`$ $`\nu |X`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i=`$ $`g^{il}\left\{_j(\nu |Xh_{kl})+_k(\nu |Xh_{jl})_l(\nu |Xh_{jk})\right\}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{A}\nu |X+\mathrm{A}\nu |X.`$
Supposing $`X`$ normal, we have immediately the following modification of Lemma 3.1 substituting the tensor $`a_{ij}(X)`$ with $`2\nu |Xh_{ij}`$.

###### Lemma 3.5.

For every covariant tensor $`T=T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}`$, we have

$$\frac{}{t}^sT=^s\frac{T}{t}+𝔭_s(T,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)$$

where in $`𝔭_s(T,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)`$ the derivative $`^sT`$ does not appear. If $`T`$ is a function $`f:M^k`$

$$\frac{}{t}^sf=^s\frac{f}{t}+𝔭_{s1}(f,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)$$

and $`𝔭_{s1}(f,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)`$ does not contain $`^sf`$.

This lemma and the fact that $`\frac{\nu }{t}=\nu |X`$ lead to the following proposition.

###### Proposition 3.6.

Letting $`\{e_\alpha \}`$ the canonical basis of $`^{n+1}`$ and setting $`\nu =\nu ^\alpha e_\alpha ^{n+1}`$, we have

$$\frac{}{t}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}\nu ^\alpha =_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^\alpha \nu |X+𝔭_{m1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)$$

where we denoted with $`^\alpha \nu |X`$ the $`\alpha `$ component of the gradient $`\nu |X`$ in the canonical basis of $`^{n+1}`$. Moreover, the derivative $`^m\nu `$ is not present in $`𝔭_{m1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)`$.

We are finally ready to compute

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}{\displaystyle _M}1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu _t|_{t=0}=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}\left(1+|^m\nu |^2\right)\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g^{i_kj_k}\mathrm{}g^{i_mj_m}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}\nu _{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu d\mu `$
$`2{\displaystyle _M}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_mj_m}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^\alpha \nu |X_{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu ^\alpha d\mu `$
$`+2{\displaystyle _M}^m\nu 𝔭_{m1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)𝑑\mu `$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}\left(1+|^m\nu |^2\right)\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`+2m{\displaystyle _M}^m\nu ^m\nu \mathrm{A}\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`2{\displaystyle _M}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_mj_m}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^\alpha \nu |X_{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu ^\alpha d\mu `$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔭_{m1}(^m\nu ,\nu ,\mathrm{A},\nu |X)𝑑\mu .`$
Now, in order to “carry away” derivatives from $`\nu |X`$ in the last integral, we integrate by parts with the divergence theorem, “moving” all the derivatives on the other terms of the products. Hence, we can rewrite it as

$$_M𝔭_{2m2}(\nu ,\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu ,$$

which is equal to

$$_M𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu $$

with the conventions of Section 2.
Since also the second integral has this form, collecting them together, we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d}{dt}}{\displaystyle _M}1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu _t|_{t=0}=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu +{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`2{\displaystyle _M}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_mj_m}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^\alpha \nu |X_{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu ^\alpha d\mu .`$
Finally, we deal with this last term. First, by the divergence theorem it can be transformed in

$$2(1)^m_M^\alpha \nu |X^{j_m\mathrm{}j_1}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu ^\alpha d\mu ,$$

second, using the tangential divergence formula (2.2), it is equal to

$$2(1)^m_M\nu |X^\alpha ^{j_m\mathrm{}j_1}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_m}\nu ^\alpha d\mu +_M𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu ,$$

where the extra term $`𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X`$, which has a differentiation order lower than the first term, comes from the product with the mean curvature in the tangential divergence formula.
Notice now that the permutation of derivatives introduces additional lower order terms of the form

$$_M𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu $$

by formulas (2.3), hence we get

$$2(1)^m_M\nu |X^{j_1}_{j_1}\mathrm{}^{j_m}_{j_m}^\alpha \nu ^\alpha d\mu +_M𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu $$

that is,

$$2(1)^m_M\nu |X\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}^\alpha \nu ^\alpha d\mu +_M𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu .$$

By Gauss–Weingarten relations (2.5), we have

$$^\alpha \nu ^\alpha =\frac{\phi ^\alpha }{x_i}g^{ij}h_{jl}g^{ls}\frac{\phi ^\alpha }{x_s}=g^{ij}h_{jl}g^{ls}g_{si}=g^{ij}h_{ji}=\mathrm{H},$$

so we conclude

$`\delta _m(\phi )(X)=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu +{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`+2(1)^m{\displaystyle _M}\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^1(\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu +{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})\nu |X𝑑\mu `$
$`+2(1)^m{\displaystyle _M}\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}\nu |X𝑑\mu .`$
By the previous discussion this formula holds in general for every vector field $`X`$ along $`M`$. We summarize all these facts in the following theorem.

###### Theorem 3.7.

For any $`m1`$ the first variation of the functional $`_m`$ is given by

$$\delta _m(\phi )(X)=_M\mathrm{E}_m(\phi )\nu |X𝑑\mu $$

where the function $`\mathrm{E}_m(\phi )`$ has the form

$$\mathrm{E}_m(\phi )=2(1)^m\stackrel{m\text{ }\text{times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}+𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^1(\mathrm{A}).$$

## 4. Gradient Flow and Small Time Existence

Suppose that $`\phi _0:M^{n+1}`$ is smooth immersion of an $`n`$–dimensional hypersurface $`M`$ which is compact, connected and has empty boundary.

We look for a smooth function $`\phi :M\times [0,T)`$ such that

1. the map $`\phi _t=\phi (,t):M^{n+1}`$ is an immersion;
2. the following partial differential equation is satisfied

$$\frac{\phi }{t}(p,t)=\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)(p)\nu (p,t).$$

If we have a solution, then we say that the hypersurfaces $`M_t=(M,g_t)`$, where $`g_t`$ is the induced metric on $`M`$, evolve by the gradient flow of the functional $`_m`$.

The small time existence of such flow is a slight modification of the following result of Polden (see , Thm. 2.5.2, Sec. 2 or ).

###### Theorem 4.1.

For any smooth hypersurface immersion $`\phi _0:MN`$, with $`N`$ a smooth $`(n+1)`$–dimensional Riemannian manifold, there exists a unique solution to the flow problem

$$\frac{\phi }{t}=\left((1)^{s+1}\stackrel{s\text{ }\text{times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}+\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi ,\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{},^{2s1}\mathrm{A})\right)\nu $$

defined on some interval $`0t<T`$ and taking $`\phi _0`$ as its initial value.

Looking at Polden’s proof, it is possible to allow the function $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ to depend also on the metric $`g`$, moreover the covariant derivatives of the normal $`\nu `$, using induction and the Gauss–Weingarten relations (2.5), can be expressed in terms of the covariant derivatives of the curvature (see the proof of Lemma 7.5).
Hence, we can conclude that there exists a small time solution of the problem

$$\frac{\phi }{t}=\left((1)^{m+1}\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}H+\mathrm{\Phi }(\phi ,g,\mathrm{A},\nu ,\mathrm{A},\nu ,\mathrm{},^{2m1}\mathrm{A},^{2m}\nu )\right)\nu $$

which includes our case up to a constant multiplying the leading term. Since such a constant can be eliminated by a time–only rescaling and since a smooth evolution of an immersed compact manifold clearly remains an immersion at least for some positive time, we have a small time existence and uniqueness result for the gradient flow of $`_m`$ with every initial hypersurface.

## 5. A Priori Estimates

To prove long time existence we need a priori estimates on the second fundamental form and its derivatives which are obtained via Sobolev and Gagliardo–Nirenberg interpolation inequalities for functions defined on $`M_t`$.
Since the hypersurfaces are moving, also the constants appearing in such inequalities change during the flow, hence, before proceeding with the estimates, we need some uniform control on them.

In this section we see that if the integer $`m`$ larger than $`\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$ then we have a uniform control, independent of time, on the $`L^{n+1}`$ norm of the second fundamental form; this is a crucial point where such hypothesis is necessary. This fact will allow us to show in the next section that also the above constants are uniformly bounded during the flow.
In the last part of the section, using an inequality of Michael and Simon, we prove also an a priori lower bound on the volume of the evolving hypersurfaces.

By the very definition of the flow, the value of the functional $`_m`$ decreases in time, since

$$\frac{d}{dt}_m(\phi _t)=_M\left[\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)\right]^2𝑑\mu _t0,$$

hence, as long as the flow remains smooth, we have the uniform estimate

(5.1)
$$_M1+|^m\mathrm{A}|^2d\mu _t=_m(\phi _t)_m(\phi _0)$$

for every $`t0`$.

Now we want to prove that if $`m>\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$, this estimate implies that the $`L^{n+1}(\mu _t)`$ norms of the second fundamental form $`\mathrm{A}`$ of $`M_t`$ are uniformly bounded independently of time.

Our starting point is the following universal interpolation type inequalities for tensors.

###### Proposition 5.1.

Suppose that $`(M,g)`$ is a smooth and compact $`n`$–dimensional Riemannian manifold without boundary and $`\mu `$ the measure associated to $`g`$.
Then for every covariant tensor $`T`$ and exponents $`q[1,+\mathrm{})`$ and $`r[1,+\mathrm{}]`$, we have

(5.2)
$$^jT_{L^p(\mu )}C^sT_{L^q(\mu )}^{\frac{j}{s}}T_{L^r(\mu )}^{\frac{sj}{s}}j[0,s],$$

with

$$\frac{1}{p}=\frac{j}{sq}+\frac{sj}{sr},$$

where the constant $`C`$ depends only on $`n`$, $`s`$, $`j`$, $`p`$, $`q`$, $`r`$ and not on the metric or the geometry of $`M`$.

The proof of the case $`r=+\mathrm{}`$ can be found in , Sec. 12, along the same lines also the case $`r<+\mathrm{}`$ follows (see also , Chap. 3, Sec. 7.6).

Suppose that $`M`$ is orientable and that $`g`$ is the metric induced by the immersion $`\phi :M^{n+1}`$, let $`\nu `$ be a global unit normal vector field on $`M`$.
If in (5.2) we consider $`T=\nu `$, $`s=m`$, $`j=1`$, $`q=2`$ and $`r=+\mathrm{}`$, then we have $`|T|=1`$ and $`p=2m`$, hence

$$\nu _{L^{2m}(\mu )}C^m\nu _{L^2(\mu )}^{\frac{1}{m}},$$

for a constant $`C=C(n,m)`$.
Since by (2.5) $`|\nu |=|\mathrm{A}|`$, we conclude

$$_M|\mathrm{A}|^{2m}𝑑\mu C_M|^m\nu |^2𝑑\mu C_m(\phi ).$$

If $`M`$ is not orientable, then there exists a two–fold Riemannian covering $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ of $`M`$, with a locally isometric projection map $`\pi :\stackrel{~}{M}M`$ which is orientable and immersed in $`^{n+1}`$ via the map $`\phi \pi `$. Repeating the previous argument for $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ we get

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}}|\mathrm{A}|^{2m}𝑑\stackrel{~}{\mu }C_{\stackrel{~}{M}}|^m\nu |^2𝑑\stackrel{~}{\mu }.$$

Since $`\pi `$ is a local isometry and noticing that the global unit normal field on $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ gives locally a unit normal field on $`M`$, all the quantities which appear inside the integrals above do not change passing from $`\stackrel{~}{M}`$ to $`M`$, only when we integrate we need to take into account the two–fold structure of the covering. This means that for every smooth function $`u:M`$ we have

$$_{\stackrel{~}{M}}u\pi 𝑑\stackrel{~}{\mu }=2_Mu𝑑\mu .$$

Hence, we deduce

$$2_M|\mathrm{A}|^{2m}𝑑\mu 2C_M|^m\nu |^2𝑑\mu 2C_m(\phi )$$

which clearly gives the same estimate as in the orientable case.

As $`2m>2\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]n+1`$, we have

(5.3)
$$_M|\mathrm{A}|^{n+1}𝑑\mu \left(_M|\mathrm{A}|^{2m}𝑑\mu \right)^{\frac{n+1}{2m}}\left(\text{Vol }M\right)^{\frac{2mn1}{2m}}C_m(\phi )$$

with a constant $`C=C(n,m)`$.

Finally we show that also the volume of $`M`$ is well controlled by the value of $`_m(\phi )`$ under the hypothesis $`m>\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$.
The bound from above is obvious, the bound from below in dimension $`n>1`$ can be obtained via the following universal Sobolev inequality due to Michael and Simon (see ).

###### Proposition 5.2.

Let $`\phi :M^{n+1}`$ be an immersion of an $`n`$–dimensional, compact hypersurface without boundary. On $`M`$ we consider the Riemannian metric induced by $`^{n+1}`$ and the corresponding measure $`\mu `$.
Then, there exists a constant $`C=C(n,p)`$ depending only on the dimension $`n`$ and the exponent $`p`$ such that, for every smooth function $`u:M`$

(5.4)
$$\left(_M|u|^p^{}𝑑\mu \right)^{1/p^{}}C(n,p)\left(_M|u|^p𝑑\mu +_M|\mathrm{H}u|^p𝑑\mu \right)^{1/p},$$

where $`p[1,n)`$, $`n>1`$ and $`p^{}=\frac{np}{np}`$.

Considering the function $`u:M`$ constantly equal to 1 in the inequality for $`p=1`$, and taking in account (5.3), we get

$`\left(\text{Vol }M\right)^{\frac{n1}{n}}`$ $`C{\displaystyle _M}|\mathrm{H}|𝑑\mu `$
$``$ $`C\mathrm{A}_{L^{n+1}(\mu )}\left(\text{Vol }M\right)^{\frac{n}{n+1}}`$
$``$ $`C_m(\phi )^{\frac{1}{n+1}}\left(\text{Vol }M\right)^{\frac{n}{n+1}}.`$
Dividing both members by $`\left(\text{Vol }M\right)^{\frac{n1}{n}}`$, as $`\frac{n}{n+1}>\frac{n1}{n}`$ we conclude

$$1C_m(\phi )^{\frac{1}{n+1}}\left(\text{Vol }M\right)^{\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}$$

that is,

$$\frac{C}{_m(\phi )^n}\text{Vol }M_m(\phi )$$

for a constant $`C=C(n,m)`$.

###### Remark 5.3.

With the same argument, it follows that also $`\mathrm{A}_{L^{n+1}(\mu )}`$ can be controlled above and below with $`_m(\phi )`$ and that the functional $`_m`$ is uniformly bounded from below by a constant greater than zero.

In the special case $`n=1`$, we recall that for every closed curve $`\gamma :\mathrm{SS}^1^2`$ in the plane the integral of the modulus of its curvature is at least $`2\pi `$, then

$$2\pi _{\mathrm{SS}^1}|\mathrm{A}|𝑑s\left(_{\mathrm{SS}^1}|\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑s\right)^{1/2}\sqrt{\mathrm{Length}\text{ }\gamma }C\sqrt{_m(\gamma )}\sqrt{\mathrm{Length}\text{ }\gamma }.$$

Hence,

$$\frac{C}{_m(\gamma )}\mathrm{Length}\text{ }\gamma _m(\gamma )$$

with $`C=C(m)`$.

Putting together all these inequalities and the uniform estimate (5.1) we obtain the following result.

###### Proposition 5.4.

As long as the flow by the gradient of $`_m`$ of a hypersurface in $`^{n+1}`$ exists, we have the estimates

$$\mathrm{A}_{L^{n+1}(\mu _t)}C_1<+\mathrm{}$$

$$0<C_2\text{Vol}\text{ }M_tC_3<+\mathrm{}$$

where the three constants $`C_1`$, $`C_2`$ and $`C_3`$ are independent of time.
They depend only on $`n`$, $`m`$ and the value of $`_m`$ for the initial hypersurface.

## 6. Interpolation Inequalities for Tensors

As we said, we show now that the uniform bound on the $`L^{n+1}`$ norm of the second fundamental form implies that the constants involved in some Sobolev and Gagliardo–Nirenberg interpolation type inequalities are also equibounded.

Recalling inequality (5.4), we have

(6.1)
$$u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}C(n,p)\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+\mathrm{H}u_{L^p(\mu )}\right)$$

for every $`uC^1(M)`$, where $`p^{}=\frac{np}{np}`$ and $`p[1,n)`$.

###### Proposition 6.1.

If the manifold $`(M,g)`$ satisfies Vol $`M+\mathrm{H}_{L^{n+\delta }(\mu )}B`$ for some $`\delta >0`$ then for every $`p[1,n)`$,

$$u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}C\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}\right)uC^1(M),$$

where the constant $`C`$ depends only on $`n`$, $`p`$, $`\delta `$ and $`B`$.

###### Proof.

Applying Hölder inequality to the last term of inequality (6.1), we get

$$u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}C(n,p)u_{L^p(\mu )}+C(n,p,\delta ,B)u_{L^{\stackrel{~}{p}}(\mu )}$$

where $`\stackrel{~}{p}`$ is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{p}=\frac{p(n+\delta )}{n+\delta p}=p^{}\frac{n(n+\delta )}{n(n+\delta )+p^{}\delta },$$

then $`p<\stackrel{~}{p}<p^{}`$.
Hence, we can interpolate $`u_{L^{\stackrel{~}{p}}(\mu )}`$ between a small fraction of $`u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}`$ and a possibly large multiple of $`u_{L^p(\mu )}`$,

$$u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}C(n,p)u_{L^p(\mu )}+C(n,p,\delta ,B)\left(\epsilon u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}+C(\epsilon ,p)u_{L^p(\mu )}\right).$$

Choosing $`\epsilon >0`$ such that $`\epsilon C(n,p,\delta ,B)1/2`$ and collecting terms we obtain

$$u_{L^p^{}(\mu )}C(n,p,\delta ,B)\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}\right).$$

When $`p>n`$ we prove the following $`L^{\mathrm{}}`$ result (see also , Thm. 5.6).

###### Proposition 6.2.

If the manifold $`(M,g)`$ satisfies Vol $`M+\mathrm{H}_{L^{n+\delta }(\mu )}B`$ for some $`\delta >0`$ then for every $`p>n`$, we have

$$\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|u|C\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}\right)uC^1(M),$$

where the constant $`C`$ depends only on $`n`$, $`p`$, $`\delta `$ and $`B`$.

###### Proof.

Suppose first that $`M`$ is embedded and $`n+\delta p>n`$, clearly $`\mathrm{H}_{L^p(\mu )}`$ is bounded by a value depending on the constant $`B`$.
We consider $`M`$ as a subset of $`^{n+1}`$ via the embedding $`\phi `$ and $`\mu `$ as a measure on $`^{n+1}`$ which is supported on $`M`$. Then the following result holds (, Thm. 17.7): let $`B_\rho (x)`$ be the ball of radius $`\rho `$ centered at $`x`$ in $`^{n+1}`$, for every $`0<\sigma <\rho <+\mathrm{}`$ we have

$$\left(\frac{\mu (B_\sigma (x))}{\sigma ^n}\right)^{1/p}\left(\frac{\mu (B_\rho (x))}{\rho ^n}\right)^{1/p}+C(n,p,\delta ,B)\left(\rho ^{1n/p}\sigma ^{1n/p}\right).$$

Hence,

$$\left(\frac{\mu (B_\sigma (x))}{\sigma ^n}\right)^{1/p}\frac{C_1}{\rho ^{n/p}}+C_2\rho ^{1n/p},$$

and choosing $`\rho =1`$, for every $`0<\sigma <1`$ we get the inequality

$$\mu (B_\sigma (x))C(n,p,\delta ,B)\sigma ^n.$$

Then we need the following formula which is proved in , Sec. 18, as a consequence of the tangential divergence formula (2.2).
For every $`0<\sigma <\rho <+\mathrm{}`$ we have

$$\frac{_{B_\sigma (x)}u𝑑\mu }{\sigma ^n}\frac{_{B_\rho (x)}u𝑑\mu }{\rho ^n}+_\sigma ^\rho \tau ^{n1}_{B_\tau (x)}r(|u|+|u\mathrm{H}|)𝑑\mu (y)𝑑\tau $$

where $`r=|xy|`$ and $`u`$ is any smooth non negative function.

Noticing that $`r\tau `$ and using Hölder inequality we estimate

$`{\displaystyle \frac{_{B_\sigma (x)}u𝑑\mu }{\sigma ^n}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_{B_\rho (x)}u𝑑\mu }{\rho ^n}}+\left({\displaystyle _M}|u|^p+|u\mathrm{H}|^pd\mu \right)^{1/p}{\displaystyle _\sigma ^\rho }\tau ^n\mu (B_\tau (x))^{11/p}𝑑\tau `$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle _{B_1(x)}}u𝑑\mu +C\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u\mathrm{H}_{L^p(\mu )}\right){\displaystyle _\sigma ^1}\tau ^n\tau ^{nn/p}𝑑\tau `$
where in the last passage we set $`\rho =1`$ used the previous estimate on $`\mu (B_\tau (x))`$. The function $`\tau ^{n/p}`$ is integrable since $`p>n`$ and we get

$$\frac{_{B_\sigma (x)}u𝑑\mu }{\sigma ^n}_{B_1(x)}u𝑑\mu +C\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u\mathrm{H}_{L^p(\mu )}\right)\frac{1\sigma ^{1n/p}}{1n/p},$$

now sending $`\sigma `$ to zero, on the left side we obtain the value of $`u(x)`$ times $`\omega _n`$ which is the volume of the unit ball of $`^n`$, hence

$`\omega _nu(x)`$ $`{\displaystyle _{B_1(x)}}u𝑑\mu +C\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u\mathrm{H}_{L^p(\mu )}\right)`$
$``$ $`C(n,p,\delta ,B)\left(u_{L^1(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}+u\mathrm{H}_{L^p(\mu )}\right).`$
For a general $`u`$ we apply this inequality to the function $`u^2`$, thus

$`u^2(x)`$ $`C\left({\displaystyle _M}|u|^2𝑑\mu +\left({\displaystyle _M}|uu|^p𝑑\mu \right)^{1/p}+\left({\displaystyle _M}|u^2\mathrm{H}|^p𝑑\mu \right)^{1/p}\right)`$
$`C\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|u|\left({\displaystyle _M}|u|𝑑\mu +\left({\displaystyle _M}|u|^p𝑑\mu \right)^{1/p}+\left({\displaystyle _M}|u\mathrm{H}|^p𝑑\mu \right)^{1/p}\right).`$
Since $`x^{n+1}`$ was arbitrary we conclude that

$$\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|u|C(n,p,\delta ,B)\left(u_{L^1(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}+u\mathrm{H}_{L^p(\mu )}\right).$$

for a constant $`C`$ depending on $`n,p`$, $`\delta `$ and $`B`$.
If $`M`$ is only immersed, we consider the embeddings of $`M`$ in $`^{n+1}\times ^k`$ given by the map $`\phi \times \epsilon \psi :M^{n+1}\times ^k`$, where $`\psi :M^k`$ is an embedding of $`M`$ in some Euclidean space. Then, repeating the previous argument (it is possible since the starting inequalities from  hold for embeddings in any $`^l`$) we will get the same conclusion with a constant $`C_\epsilon `$. Finally, as $`C_\epsilon `$ depends only on Vol $`M`$ and $`\mathrm{H}`$, and all the geometric quantities converge uniformly when $`\epsilon `$ goes to zero, we conclude that the inequality holds also in the immersed case.

Now, given any $`p>n`$, we choose $`\stackrel{~}{p}=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{min}\{n+p,2n+\delta \}`$, then clearly $`n<\stackrel{~}{p}<\mathrm{min}\{p,n+\delta /2\}`$. By the inequality above we have

$$\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|u|C(n,\stackrel{~}{p},\delta ,B)\left(u_{L^1(\mu )}+u_{L^{\stackrel{~}{p}}(\mu )}+u\mathrm{H}_{L^{\stackrel{~}{p}}(\mu )}\right),$$

then using Hölder inequality and an interpolation argument as in the proof of Proposition 6.1 we get

$$\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|u|C(n,\stackrel{~}{p},\delta ,B)\left(u_{L^1(\mu )}+u_{L^{\stackrel{~}{p}}(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}\right).$$

Applying again Hölder inequality, as $`\stackrel{~}{p}<p`$, we conclude that

$$\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|u|C(n,\stackrel{~}{p},\delta ,B)\left(u_{L^p(\mu )}+u_{L^p(\mu )}\right),$$

which gives the thesis since $`\stackrel{~}{p}`$ depends only on $`n`$, $`p`$ and $`\delta `$. ∎

We now extend these propositions to tensors (see , Prop. 2.11 and also ). Since $`|T|`$ is not necessarily smooth we apply the previous inequalities first to the smooth functions $`\sqrt{|T|^2+\epsilon ^2}`$, converging to $`|T|`$ when $`\epsilon 0`$. As

$$\left|\sqrt{|T|^2+\epsilon ^2}\right|=\left|\frac{T,T}{\sqrt{|T|^2+\epsilon ^2}}\right|\frac{|T|}{\sqrt{|T|^2+\epsilon ^2}}|T||T|$$

we get then easily the following result.

###### Proposition 6.3.

If the manifold $`(M,g)`$ satisfies Vol $`M+\mathrm{H}_{L^{n+\delta }(\mu )}B`$ for some $`\delta >0`$ then for every covariant tensor $`T=T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}`$ we have,

(6.2) $`T_{L^p^{}(\mu )}`$ $`C\left(T_{L^p(\mu )}+T_{L^p(\mu )}\right)\text{ if }1p<n\text{,}`$
(6.3) $`\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|T|`$ $`C\left(T_{L^p(\mu )}+T_{L^p(\mu )}\right)\text{ if }p>n\text{,}`$
where the constants depend only on $`n`$, $`l`$, $`p`$, $`\delta `$ and $`B`$.

We define the Sobolev norm of a tensor $`T`$ on $`(M,g)`$ as

$$T_{W^{s,q}(\mu )}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{s}{}}^iT_{L^q(\mu )}.$$

###### Corollary 6.4.

In the same hypothesis on $`(M,g)`$ we have

(6.4)
$$^jT_{L^p(\mu )}CT_{W^{s,q}(\mu )}\text{ with }\frac{1}{p}=\frac{1}{q}\frac{sj}{n}>0,$$

(6.5)
$$\underset{M}{\mathrm{max}}|^jT|CT_{W^{s,q}(\mu )}\text{ when }\frac{1}{q}\frac{sj}{n}<0.$$

The constants depend only on $`n`$, $`l`$, $`s`$, $`j`$, $`p`$, $`q`$, $`\delta `$ and $`B`$.

###### Proof.

By inequality (6.2) applied to the tensor $`^jT`$ we get

$`^jT_{L^p(\mu )}`$ $`C\left(^{j+1}T_{L^{p_1}(\mu )}+^jT_{L^{p_1}(\mu )}\right)`$
$`C\left(^{j+2}T_{L^{p_2}(\mu )}+2^{j+1}T_{L^{p_2}(\mu )}+^jT_{L^{p_2}(\mu )}\right)`$
$`\mathrm{}`$
$`C\left(^sT_{L^{p_{sj}}(\mu )}+\mathrm{}+^jT_{L^{p_{sj}}(\mu )}\right)`$
$`CT_{W^{s,p_{sj}}(\mu )}.`$
Since the $`p_i`$ are related by

$$\frac{1}{p_i}=\frac{1}{p_{i+1}}\frac{1}{n},$$

$`p_0=p`$ and $`p_{sj}=q`$, we have

$$\frac{1}{p}=\frac{1}{p_{sj}}\frac{sj}{n}=\frac{1}{q}\frac{sj}{n},$$

and the first part of the corollary is proved.
The second part follows analogously using also inequality (6.3). ∎

Now we put together this result and the universal inequalities

(6.6)
$$^jT_{L^p(\mu )}CT_{W^{s,q}(\mu )}^{\frac{j}{s}}T_{L^r(\mu )}^{\frac{sj}{s}},$$

which are obviously implied by Proposition 5.1, to get the following interpolation type inequalities.

###### Proposition 6.5.

In the same hypothesis on $`(M,g)`$ as before, there exist a constant $`C`$ depending only on $`n`$, $`l`$, $`s`$, $`j`$, $`p`$, $`q`$, $`r`$, $`\delta `$ and $`B`$, such that for every covariant tensor $`T=T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}`$, the following inequality hold

(6.7)
$$^jT_{L^p(\mu )}CT_{W^{s,q}(\mu )}^aT_{L^r(\mu )}^{1a},$$

for all $`j[0,s]`$, $`p,q,r[1,+\mathrm{})`$ and $`a[j/s,1]`$ with the compatibility condition

$$\frac{1}{p}=\frac{j}{n}+a\left(\frac{1}{q}\frac{s}{n}\right)+\frac{1a}{r}.$$

If such condition gives a negative value for $`p`$, the inequality holds for every $`p[1,+\mathrm{})`$ on the left side.

###### Proof.

The cases $`a=j/s`$ and $`a=1`$ are inequalities (6.6) and (6.4), respectively, the intermediate cases, when $`j/s<a<1`$, are obtained immediately by the $`\mathrm{log}`$–convexity of $`_{L^p(\mu )}`$ in $`1/p`$, which is a linear function of $`a`$, and the fact that the right side is exponential in $`a`$.
If $`p`$ is negative then $`\frac{1}{q}\frac{s}{n}<0`$ and

$$\frac{1}{q}\frac{sj}{n}\frac{j}{n}+a\left(\frac{1}{q}\frac{s}{n}\right)+\frac{1a}{r},$$

hence, the $`L^{\mathrm{}}`$ estimate of inequality (6.5) together with (6.6) gives the inequality for every $`p[1,+\mathrm{})`$. ∎

###### Remark 6.6.

By simplicity, we avoided to discuss in all the section the critical cases of the inequalities, for instance $`p=n`$ in Proposition 6.3. Actually, for our purposes, we just need to say that in a critical case we can allow any value of $`p[1,+\mathrm{})`$ in the left side of inequalities like (6.7). This can be seen easily, by considering a suitable inequality with a lower integrability exponent on the right side and then applying Hölder inequality.

Putting together the estimates of this section with Proposition 5.4 we obtain the following result.

###### Proposition 6.7.

As long as the flow by the gradient of $`_m`$ of a hypersurface in $`^{n+1}`$ exists, for every smooth covariant tensor $`T=T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_l}`$ we have the inequalities

(6.8)
$$^jT_{L^p(\mu )}CT_{W^{s,q}(\mu )}^aT_{L^r(\mu )}^{1a},$$

for all $`j[0,s]`$, $`p,q,r[1,+\mathrm{})`$ and $`a[j/s,1]`$ with the compatibility condition

$$\frac{1}{p}=\frac{j}{n}+a\left(\frac{1}{q}\frac{s}{n}\right)+\frac{1a}{r}.$$

If such condition gives a negative value for $`p`$, the inequality holds for every $`p[1,+\mathrm{})`$ on the left side.
The constant $`C`$ depends only on $`m`$, $`n`$, $`l`$, $`s`$, $`j`$, $`p`$, $`q`$, $`r`$ and the value of $`_m`$ for the initial hypersurface.

## 7. Long Time Existence of the Flow

Suppose that at a certain time $`T>0`$ the evolving hypersurface develops a singularity, then considering the family $`\left\{M_t\right\}_{t[0,T)}`$, we are going to use the time–independent inequalities (6.8) to show that we have uniform estimates

$$\underset{M_t}{\mathrm{max}}|^k\mathrm{A}|C_k<+\mathrm{}t[0,T)$$

for all $`k`$. We will see that such estimates are in contradiction with the development of a singularity at time $`t=T`$, hence the flow must be smooth for every positive time.
To this aim we are going to study the evolution of the following integrals,

$$_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t.$$

###### Remark 7.1.

As in the previous sections, we will omit to say in the computations that all the polynomials $`𝔭_s`$ and $`𝔮^s`$ which will appear are independent of the manifold $`(M,g)`$ where the tensors are defined.

First we derive the evolution equations for $`g`$, $`\nu `$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i`$ and $`\mathrm{A}`$. Essentially repeating the computations of Section 3, we get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g_{ij}=`$ $`2\mathrm{E}_mh_{ij}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g^{ij}=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}\mathrm{E}_mh^{ij}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\nu =`$ $`\mathrm{E}_m`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i=`$ $`\mathrm{E}_m\mathrm{A}+\mathrm{E}_m\mathrm{A}.`$
###### Lemma 7.2.

The second fundamental form of $`M_t`$ satisfies the evolution equation

$$\frac{}{t}h_{ij}=2(1)^m\stackrel{m+1\text{ }\text{times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}h_{ij}+𝔮^{2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^3(\mathrm{A}).$$

###### Proof.

Keeping in mind the Gauss–Weingarten relations (2.5) and the equations above, we compute

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}h_{ij}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}\nu |{\displaystyle \frac{^2\phi }{x_ix_j}}`$
$`=`$ $`\nu |{\displaystyle \frac{^2(\mathrm{E}_m\nu )}{x_ix_j}}\mathrm{E}_m|{\displaystyle \frac{^2\phi }{x_ix_j}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2\mathrm{E}_m}{x_ix_j}}+\mathrm{E}_m\nu |{\displaystyle \frac{}{x_i}}\left(h_{jl}g^{ls}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_s}}\right)`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{E}_m}{x_l}}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_s}}g^{ls}|\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^k{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_k}}h_{ij}\nu `$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{^2\mathrm{E}_m}{x_ix_j}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ij}^k{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{E}_m}{x_k}}+\mathrm{E}_mh_{jl}g^{ls}\nu |\mathrm{\Gamma }_{is}^z{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_z}}h_{is}\nu `$
$`=`$ $`_i_j\mathrm{E}_m\mathrm{E}_mh_{is}g^{sl}h_{lj}.`$
Expanding $`\mathrm{E}_m`$ we continue,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}h_{ij}=`$ $`_i_j\left(2(1)^m\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}+𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^1(\mathrm{A})\right)`$
$`\left(2(1)^m\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}+𝔮^{2m+1}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^1(\mathrm{A})\right)h_{is}g^{sl}h_{lj}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m_i_j\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H}+𝔮^{2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^3(\mathrm{A}).`$
Interchanging repeatedly derivatives in the first term we introduce some extra terms of the form $`𝔮^{2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})`$ and we get

$$\frac{}{t}h_{ij}=2(1)^m\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}_i_j\mathrm{H}+𝔮^{2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^3(\mathrm{A}),$$

then using equation (2.4) we conclude

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}h_{ij}=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m\stackrel{m\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}(\mathrm{\Delta }h_{ij}\mathrm{H}h_{il}g^{ls}h_{sj}|\mathrm{A}|^2h_{ij})`$
$`+𝔮^{2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^3(\mathrm{A})`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m\stackrel{m+1\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}h_{ij}+𝔮^{2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^3(\mathrm{A}).`$
Now we deal with the covariant derivatives of $`\mathrm{A}`$.

###### Lemma 7.3.

We have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}^kh_{ij}=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m\stackrel{m+1\text{ }\text{times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}^kh_{ij}`$
$`+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+3}(\mathrm{A}).`$
###### Proof.

With a reasoning analogous to the one of Lemma 3.5 applied to the tensor $`\mathrm{A}`$ and by the previous lemma, we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}^kh_{ij}=`$ $`^k{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}h_{ij}+𝔭_k(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{E}_m)`$
$`=`$ $`^k{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}h_{ij}+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m^k\stackrel{m+1\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}h_{ij}`$
$`+^k𝔮^{2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+^k𝔮^{2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+^k𝔮^3(\mathrm{A})`$
$`+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m^k\stackrel{m+1\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}h_{ij}`$
$`+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+3}(\mathrm{A}).`$
Interchanging the operator $`^k`$ with the Laplacians in the first term and including the extra terms in $`𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})`$, we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}^kh_{ij}=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}(1)^m\stackrel{m+1\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}^kh_{ij}`$
$`+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+3}(\mathrm{A}).`$
###### Proposition 7.4.

The following formula holds,

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle _M}|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t=`$ $`4{\displaystyle _M}|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})d\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})𝑑\mu _t.`$
###### Proof.

By the previous results we have

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}|^k\mathrm{A}|^2=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_kj_k}g^{is}g^{jz}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_k}h_{sz}`$
$`+g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g^{i_lj_l}\mathrm{}g^{i_kj_k}g^{is}g^{jz}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_k}h_{sz}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}(1)^mg^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_kj_k}g^{is}g^{jz}\stackrel{m+1\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_k}h_{sz}`$
$`+\left(𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+2m+3}(\nu ,\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{k+3}(\mathrm{A})\right)^k\mathrm{A}`$
$`+2\mathrm{E}_mg^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}h^{i_lj_l}\mathrm{}g^{i_kj_k}g^{is}g^{jz}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_k}h_{sz}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}(1)^mg^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_kj_k}g^{is}g^{jz}\stackrel{m+1\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_k}h_{sz}`$
$`+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}(1)^mg^{is}g^{jz}_{i_{k+1}}^{i_{k+1}}\mathrm{}_{i_{k+m+1}}^{i_{k+m+1}}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{sz}`$
$`+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A}).`$
Interchanging the covariant derivatives in the first term we introduce some extra terms of the form $`𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})`$, hence we get

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t=`$
$`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}(1)^m{\displaystyle _M}g^{is}g^{jz}^{i_{k+1}}\mathrm{}^{i_{k+m+1}}_{i_{k+m+1}}\mathrm{}_{i_{k+1}}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{sz}d\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})d\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})𝑑\mu _t,`$
where the last integral comes from the time derivative of $`\mu _t`$.
Then, carrying the $`m+1`$ derivatives $`^{i_{k+1}}\mathrm{}^{i_{k+m+1}}`$ on $`^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{sz}`$ by means of the divergence theorem, we finally obtain the claimed result,

$`=`$ $`4{\displaystyle _M}g^{is}g^{jz}_{i_{k+m+1}}\mathrm{}_{i_{k+1}}_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{ij}^{i_{k+m+1}}\mathrm{}^{i_{k+1}}^{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}h_{sz}d\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})d\mu _t`$
$`=`$ $`4{\displaystyle _M}|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})d\mu _t.`$
The leading coefficient became $`4`$ since we multiplied $`4(1)^m`$ for $`(1)^{m+1}`$ while doing the $`m+1`$ integrations by parts. ∎

Now we analyze the terms

$$_M𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})𝑑\mu _t\text{ and }_M𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})𝑑\mu _t.$$

If one of the two polynomials contains a derivative $`^i\mathrm{A}`$ or $`^i(\nu )`$ of order $`i>k+m+1`$, then all the other derivatives must be of order lower than $`k+m`$, since the rescaling order of the polynomials is $`2(k+m+2)`$ and the fact that there are at least three factors in every additive term. In this case, using repeatedly the divergence theorem as before, to lower such highest derivative, we get the integral of a new polynomial which does not contain derivatives of order higher than $`k+m+1`$. Moreover, if there is a derivative of order $`k+m+1`$ then the order of all the other derivatives in $`𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}`$ must be lower or equal than $`k+m`$, by the same argument.
With the same reasoning, the term

$$_M𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})𝑑\mu _t,$$

can be transformed it in a term without derivatives of order higher or equal than $`k+m+1`$.

Hence, we can suppose that the last three terms in

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}{\displaystyle _M}|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t=`$ $`4{\displaystyle _M}|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t`$
$`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})+𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\nu ,\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})d\mu _t`$
(7.1) $`+{\displaystyle _M}𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A},\mathrm{A})𝑑\mu _t`$
do not contain derivatives of $`\mathrm{A}`$ or of $`\nu `$ of order higher than $`k+m+1`$; possibly, only one derivative of order $`k+m+1`$ can appear.

###### Lemma 7.5.

The following inequality holds

$$|^s\nu ||^{s1}\mathrm{A}|+|𝔮^s(\mathrm{A})|,$$

where $`𝔮^s(\mathrm{A})`$ does not contain derivatives of $`\mathrm{A}`$ of order higher than $`s2`$.

###### Proof.

By equations (2.5) it follows that $`\nu =\mathrm{A}\phi `$, hence

$$^s\nu =^{s1}\mathrm{A}\phi +\underset{i+j=s2}{}^i\mathrm{A}^j^2\phi $$

and since $`_{ij}^2\phi =h_{ij}\nu `$, we get

$`^s\nu =`$ $`^{s1}\mathrm{A}\phi +{\displaystyle \underset{i+j=s2}{}}^i\mathrm{A}^j(\mathrm{A}\nu )`$
$`=`$ $`^{s1}\mathrm{A}\phi +{\displaystyle \underset{i+j+k=s2}{}}^i\mathrm{A}^j\mathrm{A}^k\nu .`$
Then, by an induction argument we can express $`^s\nu `$ as

$$^s\nu =^{s1}\mathrm{A}\phi +𝔮^s(\mathrm{A})$$

where $`𝔮^s(\mathrm{A})`$ does not contain derivatives of order higher than $`s2`$.
Taking the norm of both sides we get

$$|^s\nu ||^{s1}\mathrm{A}\phi |+|𝔮^s(\mathrm{A})|$$

and we conclude the proof computing

$`|^{s1}\mathrm{A}\phi |=`$ $`\left|_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{s1}}h_{il}g^{lk}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_k}}\right|`$
$`=`$ $`\left(_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{s1}}h_{il}g^{lk}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_k}}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_{s1}j_{s1}}g^{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{s1}}h_{jw}g^{wz}{\displaystyle \frac{\phi }{x_z}}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`=`$ $`\left(_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{s1}}h_{il}g^{lk}g_{kz}g^{wz}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_{s1}j_{s1}}g^{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{s1}}h_{jw}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`=`$ $`\left(_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{s1}}h_{il}g^{lw}g^{i_1j_1}\mathrm{}g^{i_{s1}j_{s1}}g^{ij}_{j_1\mathrm{}j_{s1}}h_{jw}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`=`$ $`|^{s1}\mathrm{A}|.`$
Taking the absolute values inside the integrals and using this lemma to substitute every derivative of $`\nu `$ in (7.1), we obtain

$$\frac{}{t}_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t4_M|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t+_M|𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})|+|𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A})|d\mu _t$$

where, as before, the two polynomials do not contain derivatives of $`\mathrm{A}`$ of order higher than $`k+m+1`$; possibly, only one derivative of order $`k+m+1`$ can appear in every multiplicative term of $`𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})`$.

Before going on, we remark that the $``$ product of tensors satisfies the following metric property,

(7.2)
$$|TS||T||S|.$$

This can be easily seen choosing an orthonormal basis at a point of $`M`$, in such coordinates we have

$`|TS|^2=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{free}}{\text{indices}}}{}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{contracted}}{\text{indices}}}{}}T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}S_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}\right)^2`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{free}}{\text{indices}}}{}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{contracted}}{\text{indices}}}{}}T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}^2\right)\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{contracted}}{\text{indices}}}{}}S_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}^2\right)`$
$``$ $`\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{free}}{\text{indices}}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{contracted}}{\text{indices}}}{}}T_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}^2\right)\left({\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{free}}{\text{indices}}}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\genfrac{}{}{0.0pt}{}{\text{contracted}}{\text{indices}}}{}}S_{j_1\mathrm{}j_l}^2\right)`$
$`=`$ $`|T|^2|S|^2.`$
Now by definition we have

$$𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})=\underset{j}{}\underset{l=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}^{c_{jl}}\mathrm{A}$$

with

$$\underset{l=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}(c_{jl}+1)=2(k+m+2)$$

for every $`j`$, hence

$$|𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})|\underset{j}{}\underset{l=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}|^{c_{jl}}\mathrm{A}|$$

by (7.2). Setting

$$Q_j=\underset{l=1}{\overset{N_j}{}}|^{c_{jl}}\mathrm{A}|$$

we clearly obtain

$$_M|𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})|𝑑\mu _t\underset{j}{}_MQ_j𝑑\mu _t.$$

If $`Q_j`$ contains a derivative of $`\mathrm{A}`$ of order $`k+m+1`$, we have seen that all the others have order lower or equal than $`k+m`$, then collecting derivatives of the same order, $`Q_j`$ can be estimated as follows

$$Q_j|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}|^i\mathrm{A}|^{\alpha _{ji}}$$

for some $`\alpha _{ji}`$ satisfying the rescaling condition

$$(k+m+2)+\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}(i+1)\alpha _{ji}=2(k+m+2).$$

Hence, using Young inequality, for every $`\epsilon _j>0`$ we have

$`{\displaystyle _M}Q_j𝑑\mu _t`$ $`\epsilon _j{\displaystyle _M}|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\epsilon _j}}{\displaystyle _M}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}|^i\mathrm{A}|^{2\alpha _{ji}}d\mu _t`$
$`=`$ $`\epsilon _j{\displaystyle _M}|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t+{\displaystyle _M}|𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})|𝑑\mu _t,`$
where we put in evidence the fact that the last term satisfies again the rescaling condition and no more contains the derivative $`^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}`$.
Collecting all together such “bad” terms, and choosing suitable $`\epsilon _j>0`$ such that their total sum is less than one, we obtain

$$\frac{}{t}_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t3_M|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t+_M|𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})|+_M|𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A})|𝑑\mu _t$$

where now in the last two terms all the derivatives of $`\mathrm{A}`$ have order lower than $`k+m+1`$. We are then ready to estimate them via interpolation inequalities.

As before,

$$|𝔮^{2(k+m+2)}(\mathrm{A})|\underset{j}{}Q_j$$

and after collecting derivatives of the same order in $`Q_j`$,

$$Q_j=\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}|^i\mathrm{A}|^{\alpha _{ji}}\text{ with }\underset{i+1}{\overset{k+m}{}}\alpha _{ji}(i+1)=2(k+m+2).$$

Then,

$`{\displaystyle _M}Q_j𝑑\mu _t=`$ $`{\displaystyle _M}{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}|^i\mathrm{A}|^{\alpha _{ji}}d\mu _t`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}\left({\displaystyle _M}|^i\mathrm{A}|^{\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i}𝑑\mu _t\right)^{\frac{1}{\gamma _i}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}^i\mathrm{A}_{L^{\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i}(\mu _t)}^{\alpha _{ij}}`$
where the $`\gamma _i`$ are arbitrary positive values such that $`1/\gamma _i=1`$.

We apply interpolation inequalities: if in (6.7) we take $`q=2`$, $`r=n+1`$, $`s=k+m+1`$, $`j=i`$ and $`T=\mathrm{A}`$ we get

$$^i\mathrm{A}_{L^{p_i}(\mu _t)}C\mathrm{A}_{W^{2,k+m+1}(\mu _t)}^a\mathrm{A}_{L^{n+1}(\mu _t)}^{1a}$$

with

(7.3)
$$a=\frac{\frac{1}{p_i}\frac{i}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}[\frac{i}{k+m+1},1]$$

and $`p_i>1`$.
Now, since the volumes of $`M_t`$ and $`\mathrm{A}_{L^{n+1}(\mu _t)}`$ are uniformly bounded in time, also $`\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}`$ is uniformly bounded and using the universal inequalities (6.6) with $`p=q=r=2`$ we have

$`\mathrm{A}_{W^{2,k+m+1}(\mu _t)}`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s=0}{\overset{k+m+1}{}}}C^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}^{\frac{s}{k+m+1}}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{s=0}{\overset{k+m+1}{}}}^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}+C`$
$``$ $`B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}+C,`$
where we applied Young inequality.
Hence, we conclude that we have constants $`B`$, $`C`$ independent of $`t`$ such that

(7.4)
$$^i\mathrm{A}_{L^{p_i}(\mu _t)}\left(B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}+C\right)^a$$

for $`a`$ as in (7.3) and $`p_i>1`$.

Choosing $`\gamma _i=0`$ if $`\alpha _{ji}=0`$ and $`\gamma _i=\frac{2(k+m+2)}{\alpha _{ji}(i+1)}`$ otherwise, we have clearly

$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\frac{1}{\gamma _i}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\frac{\alpha _{ji}(i+1)}{2(k+m+2)}=1$$

by the rescaling condition on the $`\alpha _{ji}`$.
We claim that for every $`i\{0,\mathrm{},k+m\}`$, the product $`p_i=\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i`$ satisfies the condition (7.3).
By definition, $`p_i=\frac{2(k+m+2)}{i+1}`$, hence we must check that the following inequality holds

$$\frac{i}{k+m+1}\frac{\frac{i+1}{2(k+m+2)}\frac{i}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}1$$

for every $`i\{0,\mathrm{},k+m\}`$. Since every term is an affine function of $`i`$, the claim follows if we show that the inequality holds for $`i=0`$ and $`i=k+m+1`$.
If $`i=0`$ we have to prove that

$$0\frac{\frac{1}{2(k+m+2)}\frac{1}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}1,$$

that is, since the denominator of the fraction is negative (as $`2mn+1`$),

$$\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}\frac{1}{2(k+m+2)}\frac{1}{n+1}0.$$

The right inequality is clearly true, again since $`2mn+1`$, the left one becomes

$$\frac{k+m+1}{2(k+m+2)}=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{2(k+m+2)}\frac{k+m+1}{n}$$

which is true as $`2(k+m+2)n`$.
When $`i=k+m+1`$ the fraction is equal to 1, hence the inequality obviously holds.

Then, the exponents $`p_i=\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i`$ are allowed in inequality (7.4) and we get

$$^i\mathrm{A}_{L^{\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i}(\mu _t)}\left(B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}+C\right)^{a_{ji}}$$

where $`a_{ji}`$ is the relative value we obtain from (7.3).

Hence,

$`{\displaystyle _M}Q_j𝑑\mu _t`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}^i\mathrm{A}_{L^{\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i}(\mu _t)}^{\alpha _{ij}}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}\left(B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}+C\right)^{a_{ji}\alpha _{ji}}`$
$``$ $`\left(B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}+C\right)^{_{i=0}^{k+m}a_{ji}\alpha _{ji}}`$
where the constants $`B`$ and $`C`$ are independent of $`t`$ and

$$a_{ji}=\frac{\frac{1}{\alpha _{ji}\gamma _i}\frac{i}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}.$$

Multiplying this relation by $`\alpha _{ji}`$ and summing on $`i`$ from $`0`$ to $`k+m`$ we get

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}\alpha _{ji}a_{ji}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{\gamma _i}\frac{i\alpha _{ji}}{n}\frac{\alpha _{ji}}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1_{i=0}^{k+m}\left(\frac{i\alpha _{ji}}{n}+\frac{\alpha _{ji}}{n+1}\right)}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\alpha _{ji}(i+1)}{n}_{i=0}^{k+m}\alpha _{ji}\left(\frac{1}{n+1}\frac{1}{n}\right)}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
recalling that $`_{i=0}^{k+m}\alpha _{ji}(i+1)=2(k+m+2)`$ we continue,

$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12\frac{k+m+2}{n}+_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\alpha _{ji}}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{2}{n}+_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\alpha _{ji}}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}.`$
Now, the denominator is negative and clearly

$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\alpha _{ji}\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\frac{\alpha _{ji}(i+1)}{k+m+1}=2\frac{k+m+2}{k+m+1},$$

so we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}\alpha _{ji}a_{ji}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{2}{n}+2\frac{k+m+2}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{2}{n}+\frac{2}{n(n+1)}+\frac{2}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{12\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{2}{n+1}+\frac{2}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{2}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{k+m+1}{n}+\frac{1}{n+1}\frac{1}{2}}}`$
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}{\displaystyle \frac{4}{(k+m+1)[2(k+m+1)(n+1)n(n1)]}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}2}.`$
Hence, we finally get

$$_MQ_j𝑑\mu _t\left(B_M|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t+C\right)^{1\delta }$$

for a positive $`\delta `$ and using again Young inequality, we have

$$_MQ_j𝑑\mu _t\epsilon _j_M|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _t+C$$

for arbitrarily small $`\epsilon _j`$. Repeating this argument for all the $`Q_j`$ and choosing suitable $`\epsilon _j`$ whose sum is less than one, we conclude that

$$\frac{d}{dt}_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t2_M|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t+C+_M|𝔮^{2(k+2)}(\mathrm{A})|𝑑\mu _t$$

with a constant $`C`$ independent of time.

The last term can be treated in the same way. It can be estimated by the sum of the multiplicative terms $`Q_j`$ and collecting derivatives of the same order as before, we have

$$Q_j\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}|^i\mathrm{A}|^{\beta _{ji}}\text{ with }\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\beta _{ji}(i+1)=2k+4.$$

In this case the coefficients $`\gamma _i`$, when $`\beta _{ji}0`$, are given by $`\gamma _i=\frac{2(k+2)}{\alpha _{ji}(i+1)}`$, hence

$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\frac{1}{\gamma _i}=\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\frac{\alpha _{ji}(i+1)}{2(k+2)}=1$$

by the rescaling condition.
With an analogous control, one can see that the conditions on the exponent $`p_i`$ are satisfied. It lasts to compute

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}\beta _{ji}a_{ji}=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\frac{1}{\gamma _i}\frac{i\beta _{ji}}{n}\frac{\beta _{ji}}{n+1}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1_{i=0}^{k+m}\left(\frac{i\beta _{ji}}{n}+\frac{\beta _{ji}}{n+1}\right)}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\beta _{ji}(i+1)}{n}+_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\beta _{ji}}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1\frac{2k+4}{n}+_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\beta _{ji}}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}.`$
As the denominator is negative and

$$\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\beta _{ji}\underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}\frac{\beta _{ji}(i+1)}{k+m+1}=\frac{2k+4}{k+m+1},$$

we obtain

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=0}{\overset{k+m}{}}}\beta _{ji}a_{ji}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1\frac{2k+4}{n}+_{i=0}^{k+m}\frac{\beta _{ji}(i+1)}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1\frac{2k+4}{n}+\frac{2k+4}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}}{\frac{1}{2}\frac{k+m+1}{n}\frac{1}{n+1}}}<2,`$
since this last inequality is equivalent to

$$1\frac{2k+4}{n}+\frac{2k+4}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}>1\frac{2(k+m+1)}{n}\frac{2}{n+1}$$

and simplifying, to

$$\frac{2k+4}{k+m+1}\frac{1}{n(n+1)}>\frac{2(m1)}{n}\frac{2}{n+1}$$

which is obviously true.

Concluding as before we finally get

(7.5)
$$\frac{d}{dt}_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t_M|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t+C$$

for a constant $`C`$ independent of time.
By (5.2) and Young inequality, we have

$`{\displaystyle _M}|^k\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t+C`$ $`B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}^{\frac{k}{k+m+1}}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}^{\frac{m+1}{k+m+1}}+C`$
$`B^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}_{L^2(\mu _t)}^{\frac{k}{k+m+1}}+C`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle _M}|^{k+m+1}\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t+C`$
again with a uniform constant. Combining this inequality with (7.5), we obtain

$$\frac{d}{dt}_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t\frac{1}{2}_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2\mu _t+C$$

and a simple ODE’s argument proves that there exists constants $`C_k`$ independent of time such that

$$_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu _tC_k.$$

To pass from $`W^{2,p}(\mu _t)`$ to pointwise estimates, first we notice that being all the derivatives of $`\mathrm{A}`$ bounded in $`L^2(\mu _t)`$, by inequalities (6.2), for every $`p1`$ and $`k`$ we have constants $`C_{k,p}`$ such that

$$_M|^k\mathrm{A}|^p𝑑\mu _tC_{k,p}.$$

Then choosing a $`p>n`$, we apply inequalities (6.3) to every $`^k\mathrm{A}`$ to conclude that for every $`k`$ we have constants $`C_k`$, independent of $`t`$, such that

(7.6)
$$\underset{M_t}{\mathrm{max}}|^k\mathrm{A}|C_k.$$

Looking back at the way we obtained them, we can see that the constants $`C_k`$ depend only on the dimension $`n`$, the differentiation order $`k`$ and the initial hypersurface $`\phi _0`$.

Following Huisken , Sec. 8 and Kuwert and Schätzle , Sec. 4, these estimates imply the smoothness of the map $`\phi (p,t)`$.
Since $`^k\mathrm{A}`$ are uniformly bounded in time, supposing that $`[0,T)`$ is the maximal interval of existence of the flow, we have

$$|\phi (p,t)\phi (p,s)|_s^t|\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _\xi )(p)|𝑑\xi C(ts)$$

for every $`0st<T`$, then $`\phi _t`$ uniformly converge to a continuous limit $`\phi _T`$ as $`tT`$.
We recall Lemma 8.2 in  (Lemma 14.2 in ).

###### Lemma 7.6.

Let $`g_{ij}`$ a time–dependent metric on a compact manifold $`M`$ for $`0t<T+\mathrm{}`$. Suppose that

$$_0^T\underset{M_t}{\mathrm{max}}\left|\frac{}{t}g_{ij}\right|dtC.$$

Then the metrics $`g_{ij}(t)`$ are all equivalent, and they converge as $`tT`$ uniformly to a positive definite metric tensor $`g_{ij}(T)`$ which is continuous and also equivalent.

In our situation, if $`T<+\mathrm{}`$, the hypotheses of this lemma are clearly satisfied, hence $`\phi (,T)`$ represents a hypersurface. Moreover, it also follows that there exists a positive constant $`C`$ depending only on $`n`$ and $`\phi _0`$ such that for every $`0t<T`$ we have

$$\frac{1}{C}g_{ij}(t)C.$$

Since

$$\frac{}{t}g_{ij}=2\mathrm{E}_mh_{ij}$$

by (7.6), for every $`k`$ we have

$$^k\frac{}{t}g_{ij}_{L^{\mathrm{}}(\mu )}C_k,$$

analogously, as the time derivative of the Christoffel symbols is given by

$$\frac{}{t}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i=\mathrm{E}_m\mathrm{A}+\mathrm{E}_m\mathrm{A}$$

it follows that

$$^k\frac{}{t}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jk}^i_{L^{\mathrm{}}(\mu )}C_k.$$

for every $`k`$.
With an induction argument, we can prove the following formula (where we avoid to indicate the indices) relating the iterated covariant and coordinate derivatives of a tensor $`T`$,

(7.7)
$$^mT=^mT+\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}\underset{j_1+\mathrm{}+j_i+km1}{}^{j_1}\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{}^{j_i}\mathrm{\Gamma }^kT.$$

By this formula and induction, it follows that

$$^k\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jl}^i_{L^{\mathrm{}}(\mu )},^k\frac{}{t}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{jl}^i_{L^{\mathrm{}}(\mu )}C_k,$$

for every $`t[0,T)`$.
Applying again formula (7.7) to $`T=^s\mathrm{A}`$ we see that

$$^k^s\mathrm{A}^{k+s}\mathrm{A}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{k}{}}\underset{j_1+\mathrm{}+j_i+lk1}{}^{j_1}\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{}^{j_i}\mathrm{\Gamma }^l^s\mathrm{A},$$

and by induction and estimates (7.6) we obtain

$$^k^s\mathrm{A}_{L^{\mathrm{}}(\mu )}C_{k,s}$$

for every $`k,s`$.
Since we already know that $`|\phi |`$ is bounded and $`|\phi |=1`$, by the Gauss–Weingarten relations (2.5)

$$^2\phi =\mathrm{\Gamma }\phi +\mathrm{A}\nu ,\nu =\mathrm{A}\phi $$

and the previous estimates, we can conclude that

$$^k\phi _{L^{\mathrm{}}(\mu )}C_k$$

for every $`k`$ and $`t[0,T)`$.
The regularity of the time derivatives also follows by these estimates and the evolution equation.

Hence, the convergence $`\phi _t\phi _T`$, when $`tT`$, is in the $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ topology and $`M_T`$ is smooth. Then, using Theorem 4.1 to restart the flow with $`\phi _T`$ as initial hypersurface, we get a contradiction with the fact that $`[0,T)`$ is the maximal interval of existence.

###### Remark 7.7.

Though this argument shows that the solution is classical, we cannot conclude that the estimates on the parametrization hold uniformly for every $`t[0,+\mathrm{})`$ which is instead the case for the estimates (7.6) on the curvature.

###### Theorem 7.8.

If $`m>\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$, for any smooth hypersurface immersion $`\phi _0:M^{n+1}`$ there exists a unique smooth solution to the problem

$$\frac{\phi }{t}(p,t)=\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)(p)\nu (p,t),$$

that is, the gradient flow associated to the functional

$$_m(\phi )=_M1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu ,$$

defined for every $`t[0,+\mathrm{})`$ and taking $`\phi _0`$ as its initial value.
Moreover, such solution satisfies

$$\underset{M_t}{\mathrm{max}}|^k\mathrm{A}|C_k.$$

for constants $`C_k`$ depending only on $`n`$, $`k`$ and $`\phi _0`$.

## 8. Convergence

Let us consider the function $`\sigma :[0,+\mathrm{})`$,

$$\sigma (t)=_M\left[\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)\right]^2𝑑\mu _t0.$$

Clearly we have

$$\frac{d}{dt}_m(\phi _t)=_M\left[\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)\right]^2𝑑\mu _t=\sigma (t),$$

and integrating both sides in $`t`$ on $`[0,+\mathrm{})`$ we get

$$_0^+\mathrm{}\sigma (t)𝑑t=_m(\phi _0)_m(\phi _t)_m(\phi _0).$$

Moreover,

$$\left|\frac{d}{dt}\sigma (t)\right|=_M\left|2\frac{\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)}{t}\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)\mathrm{H}\left[\mathrm{E}_m(\phi _t)\right]^3\right|𝑑\mu _tC$$

by the bounds (7.6). Then the function $`\sigma `$, being Lipschitz and integrable on $`[0,+\mathrm{})`$, converges to zero at $`+\mathrm{}`$. This means that every $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ limit hypersurface of the flow $`\psi :M^{n+1}`$ satisfies $`\mathrm{E}_m(\psi )=0`$, i. e., it is a critical point of $`_m`$.

To find limit hypersurfaces, we need the following compactness result of Langer and Delladio .

###### Theorem 8.1.

Let be given a family $`(M,g_i)`$ of closed, oriented, $`n`$–dimensional hypersurfaces, isometrically immersed in $`^{n+1}`$ via the maps $`\phi _i:M^{n+1}`$, let $`\mu _i`$ the associated measures on $`M`$ and $`\mathrm{Bar}_i`$ the center of gravity of $`\phi _i`$, that is,

$$\mathrm{Bar}_i=_M\phi _i𝑑\mu _i.$$

Let $`h`$ be any metric tensor on $`M`$, if for some exponent $`p>n`$ and $`C>0`$ we have

$$_M1+|\mathrm{A}|^pd\mu _i+|\mathrm{Bar}_i|C<+\mathrm{},$$

then there exist a subsequence of $`\{\phi _i\}`$ (not relabeled) and diffeomorphisms $`\sigma _i:MM`$ such that, $`\{\phi _i\sigma _i\}`$ converges in the $`H^{2,p}`$ weak topology of maps from $`(M,h)^{n+1}`$ to an immersion $`\phi :M^{n+1}`$.

Translating the hypersurfaces $`\phi _t:M`$ in order to have Bar$`{}_{t}{}^{}=0^{n+1}`$, we are in the above hypotheses. Hence, we can extract a subsequence of smooth hypersurfaces $`\phi _i=\phi _{t_i}`$ and diffeomorphisms $`\sigma _i:MM`$ such that, for a fixed metric $`h`$ on $`M`$, the sequence $`\{\phi _i\sigma _i\}`$ converges in the $`H^{2,p}`$ weak topology to an immersion $`\psi :M^{n+1}`$.
With the arguments of the proof of Theorem 8.1 in  and keeping into account that in our case we have also the estimates (7.6), it is possible to conclude that actually the convergence is in the $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ topology and the limit hypersurface is smooth (see also , Prop. 3.4).

###### Theorem 8.2.

The family of smooth hypersurfaces $`\phi _0:M^{n+1}`$, immersed in $`^{n+1}`$, evolving by the gradient flow for the functional

$$_m(\phi )=_M1+|^m\nu |^2d\mu ,$$

when $`m>\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]`$, up to reparametrizations and translations, is compact in the $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ topology of maps. Moreover, every limit point for $`t+\mathrm{}`$ is a $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ critical hypersurface of the functional $`_m`$.

## 9. Some Remarks and Open Problems

### 9.1. Other Ambient Spaces

A natural extension would be to consider an ambient spaces different by $`^{n+1}`$ and a codimension $`s`$ greater than one, that is, a general Riemannian manifold $`(N,h)`$ of dimension $`n+s`$ (notice that Polden’s Theorem 4.1 about small time existence of the flow already deals with hypersurfaces in a general target manifold). In this context a functional which could be considered is

$$_m(\phi )=_M1+|^m\omega |^2d\mu $$

where $`\omega =\nu _1\mathrm{}\nu _s`$ is a $`s`$–vector obtained by a local orthonormal basis of the normal space to the $`n`$–dimensional immersed submanifold $`\phi :MN^{n+s}`$.
In  Kuwert and Schätzle announce a forthcoming paper with the extension of Polden’s results to space curves.

### 9.2. Other Functionals

It would be very interesting to study the flows in the “critical” case $`2m=n`$, where our proof fails since we are no more able to bound the constants independently of time. Notice that the well known Willmore functional (see )

$$𝒲(\phi )=_M|\mathrm{A}|^2𝑑\mu $$

falls exactly in this case if we add the area term, since $`|\mathrm{A}|^2`$ is equal to $`|\nu |^2`$.
To the author knowledge, up to now nor there is a proof of regularity of the flow, neither an example showing the development of a singularity. A first step in this research was recently done by Kuwert and Schätzle .

When $`2m<n`$ we do not expect regularity of the flow by the gradient of $`_m`$ since, by analogy with the previous discussion about the regularity of varifolds, the curvature term should not be sufficient to give regularity and dumb–bell like separation phenomena should appear during the flow of certain hypersurfaces. It should also be noticed that in this and in the critical case, the $`n`$–dimensional unit sphere in $`^{n+1}`$ collapses in finite time.

Moreover, one can consider also “non–quadratic” functionals, for instance,

$$_{m,p}(\phi )=_M1+|^m\nu |^pd\mu \text{ when }mp>n$$

(following the analogy with the Sobolev spaces), in particular,

$$_{1,p}(\phi )=_M1+|\mathrm{A}|^pd\mu \text{ for }p>n$$

which would give rise to a flow of order lower than the one of $`_m`$ when $`n>1`$.
In the same spirit another interesting functional is

$$_p(\phi )=_M1+|\mathrm{H}|^pd\mu \text{ for }p>n.$$

In these cases the smoothness of the associated flows is an open problem.

### 9.3. Smoothing Terms

From our analysis, it easily follows that for every positive constants $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ also the gradient flow of the functional

$$_m^{\alpha \beta }(\phi )=_M\alpha +\beta |^m\nu |^2d\mu $$

exists and it is smooth for every positive time.
Moreover, if we consider a general positive geometric functional

$$𝒢(\phi )=_Mf(\phi ,g,\mathrm{A},\nu ,\mathrm{},^s\mathrm{A},^l\nu )𝑑\mu ,$$

such that $`f`$ is smooth and has a polynomial growth, choosing an integer $`m`$ large enough, the gradient flow of the perturbed functional with $`\epsilon >0`$

$$𝒢_m^\epsilon (\phi )=𝒢(\phi )+\epsilon _m(\phi )$$

does not develop singularities. This is achieved choosing $`m`$ so that the rescaling order of $`|^m\nu |^2`$ is larger than the rescaling order of $`f(\phi ,g,\mathrm{A},\nu ,\mathrm{},^s\mathrm{A},^l\nu )`$, in this way the extra terms coming from $`𝒢`$ are well controlled by the leading term in the first variation of $`\epsilon _m`$ and do not affect long time existence.
We say that $`_m`$ is a smoothing term for $`𝒢`$.

Once we have a sufficiently general family of smoothing terms we can study what happens varying the parameters, in particular when the constant in front of them goes to zero.
This program, suggested by De Giorgi’s in , Sec. 5, can be stated as follows: given a geometric functional $`𝒢`$ defined on submanifolds of the Euclidean space (or a more general ambient space),

* find a functional $``$ such that the perturbed functionals $`𝒢_\epsilon =𝒢+\epsilon `$ give rise to smooth flows;
* study what happens when $`\epsilon 0`$, in particular, the existence of a limit flow and in this case its relation with the gradient flow of $`𝒢`$ (if it exists, smooth or singular).

Our work shows that the functionals $`_m`$ satisfy the first point for geometric functionals on hypersurfaces in $`^{n+1}`$ $`𝒢`$ with polynomial growth, provided we choose an order $`m`$ large enough (depending on $`𝒢`$).

Concerning the second point, a first step would be to consider the possible limits when $`\epsilon 0`$ of the flows of $`_M1+\epsilon |^m\nu |^2d\mu `$ when $`m>[n/2]`$ and their relation with the mean curvature flow. Even the simplest case of the convergence of the family of flows of curves associated to the functionals

$$_1^\epsilon (\gamma )=_{\mathrm{SS}^1}1+\epsilon k^2ds$$

to the mean curvature flow is an open problem.

### 9.4. De Giorgi’s Conjecture

Finally we introduce the original smoothing terms suggested by De Giorgi in . Given a smooth embedded hypersurface $`M^{n+1}`$, we can consider the squared distance function $`\eta ^M(x)=[d(x,M)]^2:^{n+1}`$ which turns out to be smooth in a neighborhood of the hypersurface $`M`$. Then we define the function

$$A^M(x)=\frac{|x|^2\eta ^M(x)}{2}$$

and its derivatives

$$A_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^M(x)=\frac{^mA^M(x)}{x_i\mathrm{}x_m}$$

whenever they exist, in particular for every $`xM`$.
The quantities $`A_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^M(x)`$ for $`xM`$ are related to the second fundamental form $`\mathrm{A}(x)`$ of $`M`$ and to its derivatives up to the order $`m3`$, for instance

$$|A_{ijk}^M(x)|^2=\underset{1i,j,kn+1}{}[A_{ijk}^M(x)]^2=3|\mathrm{A}(x)|^2.$$

In general there is a bijective relation between the quantities $`A_{ijk}^M(x)`$ and the second fundamental form of $`M`$ at $`x`$ (see ). In the case of immersed manifold, not necessarily embedded, the function $`A^M(x)`$ can be defined using the property that every immersion is locally an embedding.
The relations of the distance function with the second fundamental form make it a valuable tool in the study of the evolution by mean curvature (see ) and more in general of geometric functionals and flows (see for instance ).

De Giorgi suggested that the gradient flow of the functionals

$$𝒟𝒢_m(\phi )=_M1+|A_{i_1\mathrm{}i_m}^M|^2d\mu $$

when $`m`$ is large enough, does not become singular.
By analogy with our work we expect that when $`m>\left[\frac{n}{2}\right]+2`$ we obtain regularity.

The first variations of these functionals has been studied by Ambrosio and the author in , Sec. 5.3: the leading term of the first variation of $`𝒟𝒢_m`$ turns out to be a constant multiple of the leading term of $`\mathrm{E}_{m2}`$ (see Theorem 3.7)

$$2m(1)^m\stackrel{m2\text{ times}}{\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Delta }}}\mathrm{H},$$

moreover, the functional $`𝒟𝒢_m`$ has the same rescaling properties of $`_{m2}`$.
The difficult step in repeating our proof stays in controlling a priori Sobolev and interpolation constants, or more precisely in obtaining inequalities of kind

$$A_{i_1\mathrm{}i_k}^M_{L^p(\mu )}CA_{i_1\mathrm{}i_{k+l}}^M_{L^q(\mu )},$$

since the integrals are done on $`M`$ but the derivatives are taken along all the directions of the ambient space $`^{n+1}`$.

At this moment the original conjecture of De Giorgi remains open.

### 9.5. Asymptotic Behavior

An open problem arising from the discussion of the previous section is the question of the uniqueness of the limit hypersurfaces. It is also unknown to the author if actually it can happen that the hypersurface goes to the infinity when $`t+\mathrm{}`$.
To conclude, we mention the problem of classification of the limit points of these flows, or equivalently of the critical hypersurfaces of $`_m`$. In his work  Polden completely classifies the limit curves of the flow of the functional (1.1), the analogous $`n`$–dimensional result seems to be a much more difficult task.