Nonsmooth subvariety conjecture for higher cylindrical singular strata

Let n3n\geq 3 and k2k\geq 2. For a mean curvature flow M\mathbf{M} in Rn+1\mathbb{R}^{n+1}, let Sk(M)+\mathcal{S}_{k}(\mathbf{M})_+ denote its positive part of the kk-th cylindrical singular stratum. Higher-stratum nonsmoothness conjecture. There exists a mean curvature flow M\mathbf{M} in Rn+1\mathbb{R}^{n+1} such that Sk(M)+\mathcal{S}_{k}(\mathbf{M})_+ is not a kk-dimensional submanifold but is a nonsmooth subvariety of dimension at most k1k-1. The claim would show that the containment of Sk(M)+\mathcal{S}_{k}(\mathbf{M})_+ in a kk-dimensional submanifold cannot generally be improved to equality; the source suggests examples analogous to intersecting curves and leaves the existence of such flows open.

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Primary source

Ao Sun, Zhihan Wang and Jinxin Xue, “Regularity of cylindrical singular sets of mean curvature flow”, arXiv:2509.01707 (2025).

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