## Tag Archives: laplacian

### Laplacian on graph

Suppose ${\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n}$ is a domain and ${\Sigma=graph(F)\subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}}$ is a hypersurface, where ${F=F(u_1,\cdots,u_n)}$ is a function on ${\Omega}$. Define ${f=f(u_1,\cdots,u_n)}$ on ${\Omega}$. Then ${f}$ also can be considered as a function on ${\Sigma}$. How do we understand ${\Delta_\Sigma f}$?

Denote ${\partial_i=\frac{\partial}{\partial{u_i}}}$ for short. If we pull the metric of ${\mathbb{R}^{n+1}}$ back to ${\Omega}$, denote as ${g}$, then

$\displaystyle g_{ij}=g(\partial_i,\partial_j)=\delta_{ij}+F_{u_i}F_{u_j},\quad g^{ij}=\delta_{ij}-\frac{F_{u_i}F_{u_j}}{W^2},\quad \det g=W^2$

where ${W=\sqrt{1+|\nabla F|^2}}$ and ${F_{u_i}=\frac{\partial F}{\partial u_i}}$. Then one can use the local coordinate to calculate ${\Delta_\Sigma f}$

$\displaystyle \Delta_\Sigma f=\frac{1}{\sqrt{\det g}}\partial_{u_i}\left(\sqrt{\det g}\,g^{ij}f_{u_j}\right)$

$\displaystyle =g^{ij}f_{u_iu_j}+f_{u_j}\frac{\partial_{u_i}(\sqrt{\det g}\,g^{ij})}{\sqrt{\det g}}$

also one can see from another definition of Laplacian

$\displaystyle \Delta_\Sigma f=g^{ij}Hess(f)(\partial_i,\partial_j)=g^{ij}[\partial_j(\partial_i(f))-(\nabla_{\partial_j}\partial_i)f]$

$\displaystyle =g^{ij}f_{u_iu_j}-g^{ij}(\nabla_{\partial_j}\partial_i)f$

By using the expression of ${g^{ij}}$ stated above, we can calculate

$\displaystyle \frac{\partial_{u_i}(\sqrt{\det g}\,g^{ij})}{\sqrt{\det g}}=\frac{-F_{u_j}F_{u_{i}u_{k}}g^{ik}}{W^2}$

It follows from the definition of tangential derivative on ${\Sigma}$, see, that

$\displaystyle \langle\nabla^\Sigma f, e_{n+1}\rangle=g^{ij}f_{u_{i}}F_{u_{j}}=f_{u_{i}}F_{u_{i}}-\frac{f_{u_i}F_{u_i}|\nabla F|^2}{W^2}=\frac{f_{u_{i}}F_{u_{i}}}{W^2}$

then

$\displaystyle f_{u_j}\frac{\partial_{u_i}(\sqrt{\det g}\,g^{ij})}{\sqrt{\det g}}=-\langle \nabla^\Sigma f,e_{n+1}\rangle F_{u_iu_k}g^{ik}=-\langle \nabla^\Sigma f,e_{n+1}\rangle HW$

where ${H}$ is the mean curvature of the ${\Sigma}$. Combining all the above calculations,

$\displaystyle \Delta_\Sigma f=g^{ij}f_{u_iu_j}-\langle \nabla^\Sigma f,e_{n+1}\rangle HW$