Minimizing movements for forced anisotropic curvature flow of droplets

Abstract

We study forced anisotropic curvature flow of droplets on an inhomogeneous horizontal hyperplane. As in Bellettini and Kholmatov [J. Math. Pures Appl. 117 (2018), 1–58], we establish the existence of smooth flow, starting from a regular droplet and satisfying the prescribed anisotropic Young’s law, and also the existence of a $1/2$-Hölder continuous in time minimizing movement solution starting from a set of finite perimeter. Furthermore, we investigate various properties of minimizing movements, including comparison principles, uniform boundedness, and the consistency with the smooth flow.