Georgia Institute of Technology College of Sciences

We discuss asymptotic-in-time behavior of time-like constant meancurvature hypersurfaces in Minkowski space. These objects model extended relativistic test objects subject to constant normal forces, and appear in the classical field theory foundations of the theory of vibrating strings and membranes. From the point of view of their Cauchy problem, these hypersurfaces evolve according to a geometric system of quasilinear hyperbolic partial differential equations. Inthis talk we will focus on three explicit solutions to the equations:the Minkowski hyperplane, the static catenoid, and the expanding de Sitter space. Their stability properties in the context of the Cauchy problem will be discussed, with emphasis on the geometric origins of the various mechanisms and obstacles that come into play.