A new proof for global rigidity of vertex scaling on polyhedral surfaces

Abstract

The vertex scaling for piecewise linear metrics on polyhedral surfaces was introduced by Luo, who proved the local rigidity by establishing a variational principle and conjectured the global rigidity. Luo's conjecture was solved by Bobenko-Pinkall-Springborn, who also introduced the vertex scaling for piecewise hyperbolic metrics and proved its global rigidity. Bobenko-Pinkall-Spingborn's proof is based on their observation of the connection of vertex scaling and the geometry of polyhedra in $3$-dimensional hyperbolic space and the concavity of the volume of ideal and hyper-ideal tetrahedra. In this paper, we give an elementary and short variational proof of the global rigidity of vertex scaling without involving $3$-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. The method is based on continuity of eigenvalues of matrices and the extension of convex functions.