Preprint C214/2017
A Discrete Wedge Product on Polygonal Pseudomanifolds
Lenka Ptackova
Keywords: discrete exterior calculus | discrete differential geometry | polygonal mesh | discrete wedge product | discrete Hodge star operator | discrete interior product | discrete Lie derivative.

Discrete exterior calculus (DEC) offers a coordinate-free discretization of exterior calculus especially suited for computations on curved spaces. In this work, we present an extended version of DEC on surface meshes formed by general polygons that bypasses the construction of any dual mesh and the need for combinatorial subdivisions. At its core, our approach introduces a polygonal wedge product that is compatible with the discrete exterior derivative in the sense that it satisfies the Leibniz product rule. Based on the discrete wedge product, we then derive a novel primal–to–primal Hodge star operator, which then leads to a discrete version of the contraction operator and the Lie derivative on discrete 0-, 1-, and 2-forms. We show results of numerical tests indicating the experimental convergence of our discretization to each one of these operators.


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