On the Saddle Point Property of Abresch-Langer curves under the Curve Shortening Flow

Abstract

In the study of the curve shortening flow on general closed curves, Abresch and Langer posed a conjecture that the homothetic curves can be regarded as saddle points between multi-folded circles and some singular curves. In other words, these homothetic curves are the watershed between curves with a nonsingular future and those with singular future along the flow. In this article, we provide an affirmitive proof to this conjecture.

arXiv comment18 pages, 11 figures, AMS-LaTeX