Dual formulations of geometric curvature flows and their discretizations

Abstract

We propose new formulations of geometric curvature flows -- referred to as \emph{dual formulations} -- that are equivalent to the original formulations but provide a novel framework for constructing linearly implicit and energy-stable schemes for curvature-driven surface evolution, including mean curvature flow, surface diffusion, and solid-state dewetting on a substrate with a moving contact line. The dual formulations are derived by introducing, at the continuous level, an additional unknown in the form of a dual multiplier. This augmentation does not alter the continuous dynamics but makes the underlying energy-dissipation structure explicit and, in turn, enables a systematic design of linearly implicit discretizations that inherit energy stability. A key feature of this framework is that it accommodates a broad class of artificial tangential motions which can be used to maintain good mesh quality of the computed surfaces. As an illustration, we combine the framework with the minimal-deformation-rate (MDR) tangential motion, leading to what we call the \emph{dual-MDR} scheme. The resulting method is linearly implicit and energy-stable, while retaining the MDR tangential motion to maintain good mesh quality. Extensive numerical experiments demonstrate the convergence of the proposed schemes, their structure-preserving properties, and advantages on representative benchmark problems.