We study the surface diffusion flow acting on a class of general (non--axisymmetric) perturbations of cylinders $\mathcal{ C}_r$ in ${ \rm I \! R}^3$. Using tools from parabolic theory on uniformly regular manifolds, and maximal regularity, we establish existence and uniqueness of solutions to surface diffusion flow starting from (spatially--unbounded) surfaces defined over $\mathcal{ C}_r$ via scalar height functions which are uniformly bounded away from the central cylindrical axis. Additionally, we show that $\mathcal{ C}_r$ is normally stable with respect to $2 \pi$--axially--periodic perturbations if the radius $r > 1$,and unstable if $0 < r < 1$. Stability is also shown to hold in settings with axial Neumann boundary conditions.
Categories: math.AP