Hele-Shaw flow on hyperbolic surfaces (Q1606261)

The Hadamard theorem asserts that the exponential mapping from the tangent plane at a point of a complete simply connected hyperbolic surface defines a global diffeomorphism. The authors study an analogue with the metric flow replaced by Hele-Shaw flow which models the injection of a fluid into the surface. Let \(\Omega\) be a two-dimensional Riemann manifold supplied with the isothermal metric \(ds(z)^2= \omega(z)|dz|^2\) with negative Gaussian curvature. Take \(z_0\in\Omega\). There exist domains \(D(z_0,t)\) satisfying the mean value property \[ t\cdot h(z_0)= {1\over\pi} \int_{D(z_0,t)} h(z) w(z) dx dy\qquad (z= x+ iy,\;t> 0) \] for every harmonic function \(h(z)\). The boundaries \(\partial D(z_0, t)\) form a one-parameter family of embedded closed curves and the orthogonal family of curves emanating from \(z_0\) are identical with the Hele-Shaw geodesics: considering these two families of curves as coordinate lines, the Hele-Shaw exponential mapping is obtained. The article contains a large number of nice geometrical results, both of the local nature (\(\Omega\) need not be a complete manifold) and of global nature (the exponential mapping is a diffeomorphism onto \(\mathbb{C}\)). Every metric-complete \(\Omega\) is also Hele-Shaw complete but not conversely. The metric flows are hyperbolic, whereas the Hele-Shaw flows are parabolic, and the information about an obstruction travels instantaneously.