Volume preserving mean curvature flow of round surfaces in asymptotically flat spaces

Abstract

We study the volume preserving mean curvature flow of a surface immersed in an asymptotically flat $3$-manifold modeling an isolated gravitating system in General Relativity. We show that, if the ambient manifold has positive ADM mass and the initial surface is round in a suitable sense, then the flow exists for all times and converges smoothly to a stable CMC surface. This extends to the asymptotically flat setting a classical result by Huisken-Yau (Invent. Math. 1996) and allows to construct a CMC foliation of the outer part of the manifold by an alternative approach to the ones by Nerz (Calc. Var. PDE, 2015) or by Eichmair-Koerber (J. Diff. Geometry, 2024).