Level set flow

Modeling of a wide class of physical phenomena, such as crystal growth and flame propagation, leads to tracking fronts moving with curvature-dependent speed. When the speed is the curvature this leads to one of the classical degenerate nonlinear second order differential equations on Euclidean space. One naturally wonders "what is the regularity of solutions?" A priori solutions are only defined in a weak sense, but it turns out that they are always twice differentiable classical solutions. This result is optimal; their second derivative is continuous only in very rigid situations that have a simple geometric interpretation. The proof weaves together analysis and geometry. Without deeply understanding the underlying geometry, it is impossible to prove fine analytical properties.