Singularities of Mean Curvature Flow of Surfaces

Abstract

This paper proves that, at the first singular time for a smoothly immersed surface moving by mean curvature flow in a n-manifold, each tangent flow is given by a smooth, branched shrinker, possibly with multiplicity. If n=3 and if the initial surface is embedded, then the shrinker is smoothly embedded without branch points, but possibly with multiplicity. A key ingredient of the proof is a new, local version of the Gauss-Bonnet formula.