Parameterized combinatorial curvatures and parameterized combinatorial curvature flows for discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces

Abstract

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 $\alpha$-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 $\alpha$-curvature with respect to discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which confirms parameterized Glickenstein rigidity conjecture. To study the Yamabe problem for combinatorial $\alpha$-curvature, we introduce combinatorial $\alpha$-Ricci flow for discrete conformal structures on polyhedral surfaces, which is a generalization of Chow-Luo's combinatorial Ricci flow for Thurston's circle packings and Luo's combinatorial Yamabe flow for vertex scaling on polyhedral surfaces. To handle the potential singularities of the combinatorial $\alpha$-Ricci flow, we extend the flow through the singularities by extending the inner angles in triangles by constants. Under the existence of a discrete conformal structure with prescribed combinatorial curvature, the solution of extended combinatorial $\alpha$-Ricci flow is proved to exist for all time and converge exponentially fast for any initial value. This confirms a parameterized generalization of another conjecture of Glickenstein on the convergence of combinatorial Ricci flow, gives an almost equivalent characterization of the solvability of Yamabe problem for combinatorial $\alpha$-curvature in terms of combinatorial $\alpha$-Ricci flow and provides an effective algorithm for finding discrete conformal structures with prescribed combinatorial $\alpha$-curvatures.