  The mean curvature flow describes the parabolic deformation of embedded
branes in Riemannian geometry driven by their extrinsic mean curvature vector,
which is typically associated to surface tension forces. It is the gradient
flow of the area functional, and, as such, it is naturally identified with the
boundary renormalization group equation of Dirichlet sigma models away from
conformality, to lowest order in perturbation theory. D-branes appear as fixed
points of this flow having conformally invariant boundary conditions. Simple
running solutions include the paper-clip and the hair-pin (or grim-reaper)
models on the plane, as well as scaling solutions associated to rational (p, q)
closed curves and the decay of two intersecting lines. Stability analysis is
performed in several cases while searching for transitions among different
brane configurations. The combination of Ricci with the mean curvature flow is
examined in detail together with several explicit examples of deforming curves
on curved backgrounds. Some general aspects of the mean curvature flow in
higher dimensional ambient spaces are also discussed and obtain consistent
truncations to lower dimensional systems. Selected physical applications are
mentioned in the text, including tachyon condensation in open string theory and
the resistive diffusion of force-free fields in magneto-hydrodynamics.
