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The paper considers a system of equations that models a lateral flow of a Boussinesq–Scriven fluid on a passively evolving surface embedded in [Formula: see text]. For the resulting Navier–Stokes type system, posed on a smooth closed time-dependent surface, we introduce a weak formulation in terms of functional spaces on a space-time manifold defined by the surface evolution. The weak formulation is shown to be well-posed for any finite final time and without smallness conditions on data. We further extend an unfitted finite element method, known as TraceFEM, to compute solutions to the fluid system. Convergence of the method is demonstrated numerically. In another series of experiments we visualize lateral flows induced by smooth deformations of a material surface.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Abstract The paper studies a higher order unfitted finite element method for the Stokes system posed on a surface in ℝ 3 . The method employs parametric P k - P k −1 finite element pairs on tetrahedral bulk mesh to discretize the Stokes system on embedded surface. Stability and optimal order convergence results are proved. The proofs include a complete quantification of geometric errors stemming from approximate parametric representation of the surface. Numerical experiments include formal convergence studies and an example of the Kelvin--Helmholtz instability problem on the unit sphere.more » « less
