Underdetermined Fourier Extensions for Partial Differential Equations on Surfaces

Abstract: We analyze and test using Fourier extensions that minimize a Hilbert space norm for the purpose of solving partial differential equations (PDEs) on surfaces. In particular, we prove that the approach is arbitrarily high-order and also show a general result relating boundedness, solvability, and convergence that can be used to find eigenvalues. The method works by extending a solution to a surface PDE into a box-shaped domain so that the differential operators of the extended function agree with the surface differential operators, as in the Closest Point Method. This differs from approaches that require a basis for the surface of interest, which may not be available. Numerical experiments are also provided, demonstrating super-algebraic convergence. Current high-order methods for surface PDEs are often limited to a small class of surfaces or use radial basis functions (RBFs). Our approach offers certain advantages related to conditioning, generality, and ease of implementation. The method is meshfree and works on arbitrary surfaces (closed or non-closed) defined by point clouds with minimal conditions.