Approximation of the Willmore energy by a discrete geometry model

We prove that a certain discrete energy for triangulated surfaces, defined in the spirit of discrete differential geometry, converges to the Willmore energy in the sense of Γ-convergence. Variants of this discrete energy have been discussed before in the computer graphics literature.

Generation of Tubular and Membranous Shape Textures with Curvature Functionals

Tubular and membranous shapes display a wide range of morphologies that are difficult to analyze within a common framework. By generalizing the classical Helfrich energy of biomembranes, we model them as solutions to a curvature optimization problem in which the principal curvatures may play asymmetric roles. We then give a novel phase-field formulation to approximate this geometric problem, and study its Gamma-limsup convergence. This results in an efficient GPU algorithm that we validate on well-known minimizers of the Willmore energy; the software for the implementation of our algorithm is freely available online. Exploring the space of parameters reveals that this comprehensive framework leads to a wide continuum of shape textures. This first step towards a unifying theory will have several implications, in biology for quantifying tubular shapes or designing bio-mimetic scaffolds, but also in computer graphics, materials science, or architecture.

Mathematical energy minimization model for joining boron nitride fullerene with several BN nanostructures

Nanoscale materials have gained considerable interest because of their special properties and wide range of applications. Many types of boron nitride at the nanoscale have been realized, including nanotubes, nanocones, fullerenes, tori, and graphene sheets. The connection of these structures at the nanoscale leads to merged structures that have enhanced features and applications. Modeling the joining between nanostructures has been adopted by different methods. Namely, carbon nanostructures have been joined by minimizing the elastic energy in symmetric configurations. In other words, the only considerable curvature in the elastic energy is the axial curvature. Accordingly, because it has nanoscale structures similar to those in carbon, BN can also be joined and connected by using this method. On the other hand, different methods have been proposed to consider the rotational curvature because it has a similar size. Based on that argument, the Willmore energy, which depends on both curvatures, has been minimized to join carbon nanostructures. This energy is used to identify the joining region, especially for a three-dimensional structure. In this paper, we expand the use of Willmore energy to cover the joining of boron nitride nanostructures. Therefore, because catenoids are absolute minimizers of this energy, pieces of catenoids can be used to connect nanostructures. In particular, we joined boron nitride fullerene to three other BN nanostructures: nanotube, fullerene, and torus. For now, there are no experimental or simulation data for comparison with the theoretical connecting structures predicted by this study, which is some justification for the suggested simple model shown in this research. Ultimately, various nanoscale BN structures might be connected by considering the same method, which may be considered in future work.

A Li–Yau inequality for the 1-dimensional Willmore energy

By the classical Li–Yau inequality, an immersion of a closed surface in ℝ n {\mathbb{R}^{n}} with Willmore energy below 8 ⁢ π {8\pi} has to be embedded. We discuss analogous results for curves in ℝ 2 {\mathbb{R}^{2}} , involving Euler’s elastic energy and other possible curvature functionals. Additionally, we provide applications to associated gradient flows.

Isothermic constrained Willmore tori in 3-space

We show that the homogeneous and the 2-lobe Delaunay tori in the 3-sphere provide the only isothermic constrained Willmore tori in 3-space with Willmore energy below $$8\pi $$ 8 π . In particular, every constrained Willmore torus with Willmore energy below $$8\pi $$ 8 π and non-rectangular conformal class is non-degenerated.

Stable approximations for axisymmetric Willmore flow for closed and open surfaces

For a hypersurface in $\mathbb R^3$, Willmore flow is defined as the $L^2$--gradient flow of the classical Willmore energy: the integral of the squared mean curvature. This geometric evolution law is of interest in differential geometry, image reconstruction and mathematical biology. In this paper, we propose novel numerical approximations for the Willmore flow of axisymmetric hypersurfaces. For the semidiscrete continuous-in-time variants we prove a stability result. We consider both closed surfaces, and surfaces with a boundary. In the latter case, we carefully derive weak formulations of suitable boundary conditions. Furthermore, we consider many generalizations of the classical Willmore energy, particularly those that play a role in the study of biomembranes. In the generalized models we include spontaneous curvature and area difference elasticity (ADE) effects, Gaussian curvature and line energy contributions. Several numerical experiments demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of our developed numerical methods.

Topology of Surfaces with Finite Willmore Energy

In this paper, we study the critical case of the Allard regularity theorem. Combining with Reifenberg’s topological disk theorem, we get a critical Allard–Reifenberg-type regularity theorem. As a main result, we get the topological finiteness for a class of properly immersed surfaces in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with finite Willmore energy. Especially, we prove the removability of the isolated singularity of multiplicity one surfaces with finite Willmore energy and a uniqueness theorem of the catenoid under no a priori topological finiteness assumption.

Energy of sections of the Deligne–Hitchin twistor space

We study a natural functional on the space of holomorphic sections of the Deligne–Hitchin moduli space of a compact Riemann surface, generalizing the energy of equivariant harmonic maps corresponding to twistor lines. We show that the energy is the residue of the pull-back along the section of a natural meromorphic connection on the hyperholomorphic line bundle recently constructed by Hitchin. As a byproduct, we show the existence of a hyper-Kähler potentials for new components of real holomorphic sections of twistor spaces of hyper-Kähler manifolds with rotating $$S^1$$ S 1 -action. Additionally, we prove that for a certain class of real holomorphic sections of the Deligne–Hitchin moduli space, the energy functional is basically given by the Willmore energy of corresponding equivariant conformal map to the 3-sphere. As an application we use the functional to distinguish new components of real holomorphic sections of the Deligne–Hitchin moduli space from the space of twistor lines.