MCS-MP Seminar: Anna Dall'Acqua

Speaker: Anna Dall'Acqua (Ulm)

Title: Unwinding an elastic wire

Abstract: In the Bernoulli model of an elastic rod described by a curve the elastic energy is given by the integral over the curve of the square of the curvature. In the talk we first present this energy and its minimizers in different situations. Then we consider the dynamic problem given by the steepest descent flow. We discuss a general approach to prove long time existence of solutions and their asymptotic behavior in different geometries. At the end, we discuss consequences for the Willmore flow of surfaces of revolution.