On conformal variational problems and free boundary continua

Journal article, 2014

We develop a framework for deriving governing partial differential equations for variational problems on spaces of conformal mappings. The main motivation is to obtain differential equations for the conformal motion of free boundary continua, of interest in image and shape registration. A fundamental tool in the paper, the Hodge–Morrey–Friedrichs decompositions of differential forms on manifolds with boundaries, is used to identify the orthogonal complement of the subspace of conformal mappings. A detailed presentation of these decompositions is included in the paper.