Heat kernel bounds for higher order elliptic operators
The gradient flow of bending energy for plane curve is studied. The flow is considered under two kinds of constraints; one is under the area and total-length constraints; the other is under the area and local-length constraints. The fundamental results (the local existence and uniqueness) were obtained independently by Kurihara and the second author for the former one; by Okabe for the later one. For the former one the global existence was shown for any smooth initial curves, but the asymptotic...