No Arabic abstract
In this paper we are interested in defining affine structures on discrete quadrangular surfaces of the affine three-space. We introduce, in a constructive way, two classes of such surfaces, called respectively indefinite and definite surfaces. The underlying meshes for indefinite surfaces are asymptotic nets satisfying a non-degeneracy condition, while the underlying meshes for definite surfaces are non-degenerate conjugate nets satisfying a certain natural condition. In both cases we associate to any of these nets several discrete affine invariant quantities: a metric, a normal and a co-normal vector fields, and a mean curvature. Moreover, we derive structural and compatibility equations which are shown to be necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a discrete quadrangular surface with a given affine structure.
Asymptotic net is an important concept in discrete differential geometry. In this paper, we show that we can associate affine discrete geometric concepts to an arbitrary non-degenerate asymptotic net. These concepts include discrete affine area, mean curvature, normal and co-normal vector fields and cubic form, and they are related by structural and compatibility equations. We consider also the particular cases of affine minimal surfaces and affine spheres.
We analyze the moduli space of non-flat homogeneous affine connections on surfaces. For Type $mathcal{A}$ surfaces, we write down complete sets of invariants that determine the local isomorphism type depending on the rank of the Ricci tensor and examine the structure of the associated moduli space. For Type $mathcal{B}$ surfaces which are not Type $mathcal{A}$ we show the corresponding moduli space is a simply connected real analytic 4-dimensional manifold with second Betti number equal to $1$.
An affine manifold is said to be geodesically complete if all affine geodesics extend for all time. It is said to be affine Killing complete if the integral curves for any affine Killing vector field extend for all time. We use the solution space of the quasi-Einstein equation to examine these concepts in the setting of homogeneous affine surfaces.
We give a new short self-contained proof of the result of Opozda [B. Opozda, A classification of locally homogeneous connections on 2-dimensional manifolds, Differential Geom. Appl. 21 (2004), 173-198.] classifying the locally homogeneous torsion free affine surfaces and the extension to the case of surfaces with torsion due to Arias-Marco and Kowalski [T. Arias-Marco and O. Kowalski, Classification of locally homogeneous linear connections with arbitrary torsion on 2-dimensional manifolds, Monatsh. Math. 153 (2008), 1-18.]. Our approach rests on a direct analysis of the affine Killing equations and is quite different than the approaches taken previously in the literature.
We discuss discretization of Koenigs nets (conjugate nets with equal Laplace invariants) and of isothermic surfaces. Our discretization is based on the notion of dual quadrilaterals: two planar quadrilaterals are called dual, if their corresponding sides are parallel, and their non-corresponding diagonals are parallel. Discrete Koenigs nets are defined as nets with planar quadrilaterals admitting dual nets. Several novel geometric properties of discrete Koenigs nets are found; in particular, two-dimensional discrete Koenigs nets can be characterized by co-planarity of the intersection points of diagonals of elementary quadrilaterals adjacent to any vertex; this characterization is invariant with respect to projective transformations. Discrete isothermic nets are defined as circular Koenigs nets. This is a new geometric characterization of discrete isothermic surfaces introduced previously as circular nets with factorized cross-ratios.