264 research outputs found

    Confined structures of least bending energy

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    In this paper we study a constrained minimization problem for the Willmore functional. For prescribed surface area we consider smooth embeddings of the sphere into the unit ball. We evaluate the dependence of the the minimal Willmore energy of such surfaces on the prescribed surface area and prove corresponding upper and lower bounds. Interesting features arise when the prescribed surface area just exceeds the surface area of the unit sphere. We show that (almost) minimizing surfaces cannot be a C2C^2-small perturbation of the sphere. Indeed they have to be nonconvex and there is a sharp increase in Willmore energy with a square root rate with respect to the increase in surface area.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

    Quantitative estimates for bending energies and applications to non-local variational problems

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    We discuss a variational model, given by a weighted sum of perimeter, bending and Riesz interaction energies, that could be considered as a toy model for charged elastic drops. The different contributions have competing preferences for strongly localized and maximally dispersed structures. We investigate the energy landscape in dependence of the size of the 'charge', i.e. the weight of the Riesz interaction energy. In the two-dimensional case we first prove that for simply connected sets of small elastic energy, the elastic deficit controls the isoperimetric deficit. Building on this result, we show that for small charge the only minimizers of the full variational model are either balls or centered annuli. We complement these statements by a non-existence result for large charge. In three dimensions, we prove area and diameter bounds for configurations with small Willmore energy and show that balls are the unique minimizers of our variational model for sufficiently small charge

    Uniform ball property and existence of optimal shapes for a wide class of geometric functionals

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    In this paper, we are interested in shape optimization problems involving the ge ometry (normal, curvatures) of the surfaces. We consider a class of hypersurface s in Rn\mathbb{R}^{n} satisfying a uniform ball condition and we prove the exist ence of a C1,1C^{1,1}-regular minimizer for general geometric functionals and cons traints involving the first- and second-order properties of surfaces, such as in R3\mathbb{R}^{3} problems of the form: infâĄâˆ«âˆ‚Î©j0[x,n(x)]dA(x)+∫∂Ωj1[x,n(x),H(x)]dA(x)+∫∂Ωj2[x,n(x),K(x)]dA(x), \inf \int_{\partial \Omega} j_0 [ \mathbf{x},\mathbf{n}(\mathbf{x}) ] dA (\mathbf{x}) + \int_{\partial \Omega} j_1 [ \mathbf{x},\mathbf{n}(\mathbf{x}),H(\mathbf{x}) ] dA (\mathbf{x}) + \int_{\partial \Omega} j_2 [\mathbf{x},\mathbf{n}(\mathbf{x}),K(\mathbf{x})] dA (\mathbf{x}), where n\mathbf{n}, HH, and KK respectively denotes the normal, the scalar mea n curvature and the Gaussian curvature. We gives some various applications in th e modelling of red blood cells such as the Canham-Helfrich energy and the Willmo re functional

    On the Shape of Things: From holography to elastica

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    We explore the question of which shape a manifold is compelled to take when immersed in another one, provided it must be the extremum of some functional. We consider a family of functionals which depend quadratically on the extrinsic curvatures and on projections of the ambient curvatures. These functionals capture a number of physical setups ranging from holography to the study of membranes and elastica. We present a detailed derivation of the equations of motion, known as the shape equations, placing particular emphasis on the issue of gauge freedom in the choice of normal frame. We apply these equations to the particular case of holographic entanglement entropy for higher curvature three dimensional gravity and find new classes of entangling curves. In particular, we discuss the case of New Massive Gravity where we show that non-geodesic entangling curves have always a smaller on-shell value of the entropy functional. Then we apply this formalism to the computation of the entanglement entropy for dual logarithmic CFTs. Nevertheless, the correct value for the entanglement entropy is provided by geodesics. Then, we discuss the importance of these equations in the context of classical elastica and comment on terms that break gauge invariance.Comment: 54 pages, 8 figures. Significantly improved version, accepted for publication in Annals of Physics. New section on logarithmic CFTs. Detailed derivation of the shape equations added in appendix B. Typos corrected, clarifications adde

    Geometric partial differential equations: Surface and bulk processes

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    The workshop brought together experts representing a wide range of topics in geometric partial differential equations ranging from analyis over numerical simulation to real-life applications. The main themes of the conference were the analysis of curvature energies, new developments in pdes on surfaces and the treatment of coupled bulk/surface problems

    Calculus of Variations

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    Research in the Calculus of Variations has always been motivated by questions generated within the field itself as well as by problems arisin

    Phase-field models for thin elastic structures: Willmore's energy and topological constraints

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    In this dissertation, I develop a phase-field approach to minimising a geometric energy functional in the class of connected structures confined to a small container. The functional under consideration is Willmore's energy, which depends on the mean curvature and area measure of a surface and thus allows for a formulation in terms of varifold geometry. In this setting, I prove existence of a minimiser and a very low level of regularity from simple energy bounds. In the second part, I describe a phase-field approach to the minimisation problem and provide a sample implementation along with an algorithmic description to demonstrate that the technique can be applied in practice. The diffuse Willmore functional in this setting goes back to De Giorgi and the novel element of my approach is the design of a penalty term which can control a topological quantity of the varifold limit in terms of phase-field functions. Besides the design of this functional, I present new results on the convergence of phase-fields away from a lower-dimensional subset which are needed in the proof, but interesting in their own right for future applications. In particular, they give a quantitative justification for heuristically identifying the zero level set of a phase field with a sharp interface limit, along with a precise description of cases when this may be admissible only up to a small additional set. The results are optimal in the sense that no further topological quantities can be controlled in this setting, as is also demonstrated. Besides independent geometric interest, the research is motivated by an application to certain biological membranes

    Shape/image registration for medical imaging : novel algorithms and applications.

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    This dissertation looks at two different categories of the registration approaches: Shape registration, and Image registration. It also considers the applications of these approaches into the medical imaging field. Shape registration is an important problem in computer vision, computer graphics and medical imaging. It has been handled in different manners in many applications like shapebased segmentation, shape recognition, and tracking. Image registration is the process of overlaying two or more images of the same scene taken at different times, from different viewpoints, and/or by different sensors. Many image processing applications like remote sensing, fusion of medical images, and computer-aided surgery need image registration. This study deals with two different applications in the field of medical image analysis. The first one is related to shape-based segmentation of the human vertebral bodies (VBs). The vertebra consists of the VB, spinous, and other anatomical regions. Spinous pedicles, and ribs should not be included in the bone mineral density (BMD) measurements. The VB segmentation is not an easy task since the ribs have similar gray level information. This dissertation investigates two different segmentation approaches. Both of them are obeying the variational shape-based segmentation frameworks. The first approach deals with two dimensional (2D) case. This segmentation approach starts with obtaining the initial segmentation using the intensity/spatial interaction models. Then, shape model is registered to the image domain. Finally, the optimal segmentation is obtained using the optimization of an energy functional which integrating the shape model with the intensity information. The second one is a 3D simultaneous segmentation and registration approach. The information of the intensity is handled by embedding a Willmore flow into the level set segmentation framework. Then the shape variations are estimated using a new distance probabilistic model. The experimental results show that the segmentation accuracy of the framework are much higher than other alternatives. Applications on BMD measurements of vertebral body are given to illustrate the accuracy of the proposed segmentation approach. The second application is related to the field of computer-aided surgery, specifically on ankle fusion surgery. The long-term goal of this work is to apply this technique to ankle fusion surgery to determine the proper size and orientation of the screws that are used for fusing the bones together. In addition, we try to localize the best bone region to fix these screws. To achieve these goals, the 2D-3D registration is introduced. The role of 2D-3D registration is to enhance the quality of the surgical procedure in terms of time and accuracy, and would greatly reduce the need for repeated surgeries; thus, saving the patients time, expense, and trauma

    Quantitative estimates for bending energies and applications to non-local variational problems

    Get PDF
    We discuss a variational model, given by a weighted sum of perimeter, bending and Riesz interaction energies, that could be considered as a toy model for charged elastic drops. The different contributions have competing preferences for strongly localized and maximally dispersed structures. We investigate the energy landscape in dependence of the size of the 'charge', that is, the weight of the Riesz interaction energy. In the two-dimensional case, we first prove that for simply connected sets of small elastica energy, the elastica deficit controls the isoperimetric deficit. Building on this result, we show that for small charge the only minimizers of the full variational model are either balls or centred annuli. We complement these statements by a non-existence result for large charge. In three dimensions, we prove area and diameter bounds for configurations with small Willmore energy and show that balls are the unique minimizers of our variational model for sufficiently small charge
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