In this paper we develop an approach to conformal geometry of piecewise flat metrics on manifolds. In particular, we formulate the combinatorial Yamabe problem for piecewise flat metrics. In the case of surfaces, we define the combinatorial Yamabe flow on the space of all piecewise flat metrics associated to a triangulated surface. We show that the flow either develops removable singularities or converges exponentially fast to a constant combinatorial curvature metric. If the singularity develops, we show that the singularity is always removable by a surgery procedure on the triangulation.
We conjecture that after finitely many such surgery changes on the triangulation, the flow converges to the constant combinatorial curvature metric as time approaches infinity.
This paper studies the combinatorial Yamabe flow on hyperbolic surfaces with boundary. It is proved by applying a variational principle that the length of boundary components is uniquely determined by the combinatorial conformal factor. The combinatorial Yamabe flow is a gradient flow of a concave function. The long time behavior of the flow and the geometric meaning is investigated.
This paper studies the combinatorial Yamabe flow on hyperbolic bordered surfaces. We show that the flow exists for all time and converges exponentially fast to conformal factor which produces a hyperbolic surface whose lengths of boundary components are equal to prescribed positive numbers. This provides an algorithm to such problems.
In this paper, we introduce a new combinatorial curvature on two and three dimensional triangulated manifolds, which transforms in the same way as that of the smooth scalar curvature under scaling of the metric and could be used to approximate the Gauss curvature on two dimensional manifolds. Then we use the flow method to study the corresponding constant curvature problem, which is called combinatorial Yamabe problem.
We study the 3-dimensional combinatorial Yamabe flow in hyperbolic background geometry. For a triangulation of a 3-manifold, we prove that if the number of tetrahedra incident to each vertex is at least 23, then there exist real or virtual ball packings with vanishing (extended) combinatorial scalar curvature, i.e. the (extended) solid angle at each vertex is equal to 4π. In this case, if such a ball packing is real, then the (extended) combinatorial Yamabe flow converges exponentially fast to that ball packing. Moreover, we prove that there is no real or virtual ball packing with vanishing (e…
A combinatorial version of Yamabe flow is presented based on Euclidean triangulations coming from sphere packings. The evolution of curvature is then derived and shown to satisfy a heat equation. The Laplacian in the heat equation is shown to be a geometric analogue of the Laplacian of Riemannian geometry, although the maximum principle need not hold. It is then shown that if the flow is nonsingular, the flow converges to a constant curvature metric.
This article studies a discrete geometric structure on triangulated manifolds and an associated curvature flow (combinatorial Yamabe flow). The associated evolution of curvature appears to be like a heat equation on graphs, but it can be shown to not satisfy the maximum principle. The notion of a parabolic-like operator is introduced as an operator which satisfies the maximum principle, but may not be parabolic in the usual sense of operators on graphs. A maximum principle is derived for the curvature of combinatorial Yamabe flow under certain assumptions on the triangulation, and hence the he…
In this paper, we study the geometric aspects of ball packings on $(M,\mathcal{T})$, where $\mathcal{T}$ is a triangulation on a 3-manifold $M$. We introduce a combinatorial Yamabe invariant $Y_{\mathcal{T}}$, depending on the topology of $M$ and the combinatoric of $\mathcal{T}$. We prove that $Y_{\mathcal{T}}$ is attainable if and only if there is a constant curvature packing, and the combinatorial Yamabe problem can be solved by minimizing Cooper-Rivin-Glickenstein functional. We then study the combinatorial Yamabe flow introduced by Glickenstein \cite{G0}-\cite{G2}. We first prove a small …
Discrete conformal structure on polyhedral surfaces is a discrete analogue of the smooth conformal structure on surfaces that assigns discrete metrics by scalar functions defined on vertices. In this paper, we introduce combinatorial $α$-curvature for discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which is a parameterized generalization of the classical combinatorial curvature. Then we prove the local and global rigidity of combinatorial $α$-curvature with respect to discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which confirms parameterized Glickenstein rigidity conjecture. To s…
This paper investigates the combinatorial $α$-curvature for vertex scaling of piecewise hyperbolic metrics on polyhedral surfaces, which is a parameterized generalization of the classical combinatorial curvature. A discrete uniformization theorem for combinatorial $α$-curvature is established, which generalizes Gu-Guo-Luo-Sun-Wu's discrete uniformization theorem for classical combinatorial curvature. We further introduce combinatorial $α$-Yamabe flow and combinatorial $α$-Calabi flow for vertex scaling to find piecewise hyperbolic metrics with prescribed combinatorial $α$-curvatures. To handle…
In this paper, we introduce a new combinatorial curvature on triangulated surfaces with inversive distance circle packing metrics. Then we prove that this combinatorial curvature has global rigidity. To study the Yamabe problem of the new curvature, we introduce a combinatorial Ricci flow, along which the curvature evolves almost in the same way as that of scalar curvature along the surface Ricci flow obtained by Hamilton \cite{Ham1}. Then we study the long time behavior of the combinatorial Ricci flow and obtain that the existence of a constant curvature metric is equivalent to the convergenc…
In this paper, we introduce two discrete curvature flows, which are called $α$-flows on two and three dimensional triangulated manifolds. For triangulated surface $M$, we introduce a new normalization of combinatorial Ricci flow (first introduced by Bennett Chow and Feng Luo \cite{CL1}), aiming at evolving $α$ order discrete Gauss curvature to a constant. When $αχ(M)\leq0$, we prove that the convergence of the flow is equivalent to the existence of constant $α$-curvature metric. We further get a necessary and sufficient combinatorial-topological-metric condition, which is a generalization of T…
Using the fractional discrete Laplace operator for triangle meshes, we introduce a fractional combinatorial Calabi flow for discrete conformal structures on surfaces, which unifies and generalizes Chow-Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow for Thurston's circle packings, Luo's combinatorial Yamabe flow for vertex scaling and the combinatorial Calabi flow for discrete conformal structures on surfaces. For Thurston's Euclidean and hyperbolic circle packings on triangulated surfaces, we prove the longtime existence and global convergence of the fractional combinatorial Calabi flow. For vertex scalings o…
Computing uniformization maps for surfaces has been a challenging problem and has many practical applications. In this paper, we provide a theoretically rigorous algorithm to compute such maps via combinatorial Calabi flow for vertex scaling of polyhedral metrics on surfaces, which is an analogue of the combinatorial Yamabe flow introduced by Luo. To handle the singularies along the combinatorial Calabi flow, we do surgery on the flow by flipping. Using the discrete conformal theory established by Gu-Guo-Luo-Sun-Wu and Gu-Luo-Sun-Wu, we prove that for any initial Euclidean or hyperbolic polyhe…
In this paper, we introduce a parameterized discrete curvature ($α$-curvature) for piecewise linear metrics on polyhedral surfaces, which is a generalization of the classical discrete curvature. A discrete uniformization theorem is established for the parameterized discrete curvature, which generalizes the discrete uniformization theorem obtained by Gu-Luo-Sun-Wu. We also prove the global rigidity of parameterized discrete curvature with respect to the discrete conformal factors, which confirms a generalized Luo conjecture on rigidity of discrete curvatures. We further introduce a parameterize…
We introduce a new class of discrete conformal structures on surfaces with boundary, which have nice interpolations in 3-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. Then we prove the global rigidity of the new discrete conformal structures using variational principles, which is a complement of Guo-Luo's rigidity of the discrete conformal structures and Guo's rigidity of vertex scaling on surface with boundary. As a result, new convexities of the volume of generalized hyperbolic pyramids with right-angled hyperbolic hexagonal bases are obtained. Motivated by Chow-Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow and Luo's c…
In \cite{Luo0}, Feng Luo conjectured that the discrete Yamabe flow will converge to the constant curvature PL-metric after finite number of surgeries on the triangulation. In this paper, we prove that the flow can always be extended (without surgeries) to a solution that converges exponentially fast to the constant curvature PL-metric.
We investigate the combinatorial Ricci flow on a surface of nonpositive Euler characteristic when the necessary and sufficient condition for the convergence of the combinatorial Ricci flow is not valid. This observation addresses one of questions raised by B. Chow and F. Luo.
For triangulated surfaces locally embedded in the standard hyperbolic space, we introduce combinatorial Calabi flow as the negative gradient flow of combinatorial Calabi energy. We prove that the flow produces solutions which converge to ZCCP-metric (zero curvature circle packing metric) if the initial energy is small enough. Assuming the curvature has a uniform upper bound less than $2π$, we prove that combinatorial Calabi flow exists for all time. Moreover, it converges to ZCCP-metric if and only if ZCCP-metric exists.
We introduce a combinatorial curvature flow for PL metrics on compact triangulated 3-manifolds with boundary consisting of surfaces of negative Euler characteristic. The flow tends to find the complete hyperbolic metric with totally geodesic boundary on a manifold. Some of the basic properties of the combinatorial flow are established. The most important ones is that the evolution of the PL curvature satisfies a combinatorial heat equation. It implies that the total curvature decreases along the flow. The local convergence of the flow to the hyperbolic metric is also established if the triangu…
We show that the analog of Hamilton's Ricci flow in the combinatorial setting produces solutions which converge exponentially fast to Thurston's circle packing on surfaces. As a consequence, a new proof of Thurston's existence of circle packing theorem is obtained. As another consequence, Ricci flow suggests a new algorithm to find circle packings.
We define Discrete Quasi-Einstein metrics (DQE-metrics) as the critical points of discrete total curvature functional on triangulated 3-manifolds. We study DQE-metrics by introducing some combinatorial curvature flows. We prove that these flows produce solutions which converge to discrete quasi-Einstein metrics when the initial energy is small enough. The proof relies on a careful analysis of discrete dual-Laplacians which we interpret as the Jacobian matrix of the curvature map. As a consequence, combinatorial curvature flow provides an algorithm to compute discrete sphere packing metrics wit…
Local Combinatorial Criteria for Geometric Hyper-ideal Triangulations via Combinatorial Ricci Flow
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study（东京大学宇宙物理数学研究所（WPI））；Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, The University of Tokyo（东京大学大学院数理科学研究科）；RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS)（理化学研究所跨学科理论与数学科学中心（iTHEMS））
In this paper, we adopt combinatorial Ricci curvature flow methods to study the existence of cusped hyperbolic structure on 3-manifolds with torus boundary. For general pseudo 3-manifolds, we prove the long-time existence and the uniqueness for the extended Ricci flow for decorated hyperbolic polyhedral metrics. We prove that the extended Ricci flow converges to a decorated hyperbolic polyhedral metric if and only if there exists a decorated hyperbolic polyhedral metric of zero Ricci curvature. If it is the case, the flow converges exponentially fast. These results apply for cusped hyperbolic …
A discrete conformality for polyhedral metrics on surfaces is introduced in this paper which generalizes earlier work on the subject. It is shown that each polyhedral metric on a surface is discrete conformal to a constant curvature polyhedral metric which is unique up to scaling. Furthermore, the constant curvature metric can be found using a discrete Yamabe flow with surgery.
Combinatorial Ricci flow on a cusped $3$-manifold is an analogue of Chow-Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow on surfaces and Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow on compact $3$-manifolds with boundary for finding complete hyperbolic metrics on cusped $3$-manifolds. Dual to Casson and Rivin's program of maximizing the volume of angle structures, combinatorial Ricci flow finds the complete hyperbolic metric on a cusped $3$-manifold by minimizing the co-volume of decorated hyperbolic polyhedral metrics. The combinatorial Ricci flow may develop singularities. We overcome this difficulty by extending the flow…
Combinatorial Ricci flow on an ideally triangulated compact 3-manifold with boundary was introduced by Luo as a 3-dimensional analog of Chow-Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow on a triangulated surface and conjectured to find algorithmically the complete hyperbolic metric on the compact 3-manifold with totally geodesic boundary. In this paper, we prove Luo's conjecture affirmatively by extending the combinatorial Ricci flow through the singularities of the flow if the ideally triangulated compact 3-manifold with boundary admits such a metric.
In [12], the existence of ideal circle patterns in Euclidean or hyperbolic background geometry under the combinatorial conditions was proved using flow approaches. It remains as an open problem for the spherical case. In this paper, we introduce a combinatorial geodesic curvature flow in spherical background geometry, which is analogous to the combinatorial Ricci flow of Chow and Luo in [4]. We characterize the sufficient and necessary condition for the convergence of the flow. That is, the prescribed geodesic curvature satisfies certain geometric and combinatorial condition if and only if for…
We prove that for a compact 3-manifold M with boundary admitting an ideal triangulation T with valence at least 10 at all edges, there exists a unique complete hyperbolic metric with totally geodesic boundary, so that T is isotopic to a geometric decomposition of M. Our approach is to use a variant of the combinatorial Ricci flow introduced by Luo [Luo05] for pseudo 3-manifolds. In this case, we prove that the extended Ricci flow converges to the hyperbolic metric exponentially fast.
We investigate the probability of detecting combinatorial Morse flows on a simplicial complex via a random search. We prove that it is really small, in a quantifiable way.
A discrete conformality for hyperbolic polyhedral surfaces is introduced in this paper. This discrete conformality is shown to be computable. It is proved that each hyperbolic polyhedral metric on a closed surface is discrete conformal to a unique hyperbolic polyhedral metric with a given discrete curvature satisfying Gauss-Bonnet formula. Furthermore, the hyperbolic polyhedral metric with given curvature can be obtained using a discrete Yamabe flow with surgery. In particular, each hyperbolic polyhedral metric on a closed surface with negative Euler characteristic is discrete conformal to a u…
Ricci flow deforms the Riemannian metric proportionally to the curvature, such that the curvature evolves according to a heat diffusion process and eventually becomes constant everywhere. Ricci flow has demonstrated its great potential by solving various problems in many fields, which can be hardly handled by alternative methods so far. This work introduces the unified theoretic framework for discrete Surface Ricci Flow, including all common schemes: Thurston's Circle Packing, Tangential Circle Packing, Inversive Distance Circle Packing and Discrete Yamabe. Furthermore, this work also introduc…
