Lectures on mean curvature flow of surfaces

Abstract: Mean curvature flow is the most natural evolution equation in extrinsic geometry, and shares many features with Hamilton's Ricci flow from intrinsic geometry. In this lecture series, I will provide an introduction to the mean curvature flow of surfaces, with a focus on the analysis of singularities. We will see that the surfaces evolve uniquely through neck singularities and nonuniquely through conical singularities. Studying these questions, we will also learn many general concepts and methods, such as monotonicity formulas, epsilon-regularity, weak solutions, and blowup analysis that are of great importance in the analysis of a wide range of partial differential equations. These lecture notes are from summer schools at UT Austin and CRM Montreal, and also contain a detailed discussion of open problems and conjectures.