Deformation of discrete conformal structures on surfaces (Q6186454)

The paper under review deals with discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces and their evolutions under specific combinatorial curvature flows. Namely, the author considers Glickenstein's discrete conformal structures on a weighted triangulated connected closed surface with Euclidean / spherical /hyperbolic background, c.f. [\textit{D. Glickenstein}, J. Differ. Geom. 87, No. 2, 201--238 (2011; Zbl 1243.52014); \textit{D. Glickenstein}, and \textit{J. Thomas}, Adv. Math. 320, 250--278 (2017; Zbl 1379.52025)], and explores a combinatorial Ricci flow and a normalized combinatorial Ricci flow governing the evolution of the corresponding discrete conformal factor by the combinatorial curvature. These flows generalize various known forms of combinatorial Ricci / Yamabe flows for circle packings and vertex scalings on polyhedral surfaces. Since the combinatorial Ricci flows in question can develop singularities, the author extends the flows through singularities by extending the combinatorial curvature by constants. As the main result, in the case of Euclidean background it is shown that for any initial discrete conformal factor the solution of the normalized combinatorial Ricci flow can be extended to exist for all time and this solution is unique. Moreover, if there exists a discrete conformal factor with constant combinatorial curvature, then for any initial discrete conformal factor the solution of the extended normalized combinatorial Ricci flow converges exponentially fast. Besides, a combinatorial Calabi flow for Glickenstein's discrete conformal structures on a weighted triangulated connected closed surface is discussed too. This flow unifies known forms of Calabi flows for particular types of discrete conformal structures including circle packings and vertex scalings on polyhedral surfaces. It is shown under natural assumptions that if the combinatorial Calabi flow in question converges to a non-degenerate conformal factor \(u\), then \(u\) has constant combinatorial curvature. As well, if there exists a conformal factor \(u\) of constant combinatorial curvature, then the solution to the combinatorial Calabi flow exists for all time and converges exponentially fast to \(u\). The cases of hyperbolical and spherical backgrounds are explored too.