We consider an obstacle problem for elastic curves with fixed ends. We attempt to extend the graph approach provided in [8]. More precisely, we investigate nonexistence of graph solutions for special obstacles and extend the class of admissible curves in a way that an existence result can be obtained by a penalization argument.

We examine the L2-gradient flow of Euler’s elastic energy for closed curves in hyperbolic space and prove convergence to the global minimizer for initial curves with elastic energy bounded by 16. We show the sharpness of this bound by constructing a class of curves whose lengths blow up in infinite time. The convergence results follow from a constrained sharp Reilly-type inequality.

We examine a steepest energy descent flow with obstacle constraint in higher order energy frameworks where the maximum principle is not available. We construct the flow under general assumptions using De Giorgi's minimizing movement scheme. Our main application will be the elastic flow of graph curves with Navier boundary conditions for which we study long-time existence and asymptotic behavior. 5 2 dx.

By the classical Li–Yau inequality, an immersion of a closed surface in ℝ n {\mathbb{R}^{n}} with Willmore energy below 8 ⁢ π {8\pi} has to be embedded. We discuss analogous results for curves in ℝ 2 {\mathbb{R}^{2}} , involving Euler’s elastic energy and other possible curvature functionals. Additionally, we provide applications to associated gradient flows.