Uniqueness of viscosity mean curvature flow solution in two sub-Riemannian structures

Abstract

Here we provide a uniqueness result for viscosity solutions to sub-Riemannian mean curvature flow. In this setting the uniqueness cannot be deduced via comparison principle, which is known only for graphs and for radially symmetric surfaces, due to the presence of characteristic points. Here we prove that any viscosity solution is limit of a sequence of solutions of Riemannian flow, and obtain as a consequence uniqueness and comparison principle already known in the approximating riemannian setting. The results are provided in the settings of both 3-dimensional rototranslation group SE(2) and Carnot groups of step 2, which are particularly important due to their relation to surface completion problem of model of the visual cortex.