CONVEXITY ESTIMATES FOR HYPERSURFACES MOVING BY CONVEX CURVATURE FUNCTIONS

We consider the evolution of compact hypersurfaces by fully nonlinear, parabolic curvature flows for which the normal speed is given by a smooth, convex, degree-one homogeneous function of the principal curvatures. We prove that solution hypersurfaces on which the speed is initially positive become weakly convex at a singularity of the flow. The result extends the convexity estimate of Huisken and Sinestrari [Acta Math. 183:1 (1999), 45-70] for the mean curvature flow to a large class of speeds, and leads to an analogous description of "type-II" singularities. We remark that many of the speeds considered are positive on larger cones than the positive mean half-space, so that the result in those cases also applies to non-mean-convex initial data.