Convergence of Finite Element Methods for Ricci Flow

The convergence of a finite element discretization for the two-dimensional Ricci flow is proved. In this method, the Ricci flow on a two-dimensional surface is formulated into solution-driven metric evolution, with the metric evolution driven by the Gauss curvature. The Gauss curvature satisfies a parabolic equation that in turn depends on the metric, thereby enhancing the parabolic structure of the problem. The solution-driven metric evolution formulation is discretized by the finite element method, and the convergence of finite element approximations is proved by adapting the matrix-vector formulation developed in the literature initially for studying solution-driven surface evolution in extrinsic curvature flow. In addition to its convergence, the proposed method also preserves important geometric structures of the Ricci flow at the discrete level, such as area conservation and the Gauss-Bonnet theorem. Extensive numerical experiments are presented to demonstrate the convergence of the proposed method as well as the simulation of Ricci flow.