Laplace--Beltrami Equations and Numerical Conformal Mappings on Surfaces

Abstract: The conjugate function method is an algorithm for numerical computation of conformal mappings for simply and multiply connected domains. In this paper, the conjugate function method is extended to cover conformal mappings between Riemannian surfaces. The main challenge addressed here is the connection between Laplace--Beltrami equations on surfaces and the computation of the conformal modulus of a quadrilateral. We consider mappings of simply, doubly, and multiply connected domains. The numerical computation is based on an $hp$-adaptive finite element method. The key advantage of our approach is that it allows highly accurate computations of mappings on surfaces, including domains of complex boundary geometry involving strong singularities and cusps. The efficacy of the proposed method is illustrated via an extensive set of numerical experiments including error estimates.