Numerical Continuation and Bifurcation for Differential Geometric PDEs

Abstract

We describe some differential geometric bifurcation problems and their treatment in the Matlab continuation and bifurcation toolbox pde2path. The continuation steps consist in solving the PDEs for the normal displacement of an immersed surface $X ⊂\mathbb{R}^3,$ with bifurcation detection and possible subsequent branch switching. The examples include minimal surfaces such as Enneper’s surface and a Schwarz-P-family, some non-zero constant mean curvature surfaces such as liquid bridges, and some 4th order biomembrane models. In all of these we find interesting symmetry-breaking bifurcations. A few of these are (semi)analytically known and hence used as benchmarks.