This book deals with such important subjects as variational methods, the continuity method, parabolic equations on fiber bundles, ideas concerning points of concentration, blowing-up technique, geometric and topological methods. It explores important geometric problems that are of interest to many mathematicians and scientists but have only recently been partially solved.
This volume is intended to allow mathematicians and physicists, especially analysts, to learn about nonlinear problems which arise in Riemannian Geometry. Analysis on Riemannian manifolds is a field currently undergoing great development. More and more, analysis proves to be a very powerful means for solving geometrical problems. Conversely, geometry may help us to solve certain problems in analysis. There are several reasons why the topic is difficult and interesting. It is very large and almost unexplored. On the other hand, geometric problems often lead to limiting cases of known problems in analysis, sometimes there is even more than one approach, and the already existing theoretical studies are inadequate to solve them. Each problem has its own particular difficulties. Nevertheless there exist some standard methods which are useful and which we must know to apply them. One should not forget that our problems are motivated by geometry, and that a geometrical argument may simplify the problem under investigation. Examples of this kind are still too rare. This work is neither a systematic study of a mathematical field nor the presentation of a lot of theoretical knowledge. On the contrary, I do my best to limit the text to the essential knowledge. I define as few concepts as possible and give only basic theorems which are useful for our topic. But I hope that the reader will find this sufficient to solve other geometrical problems by analysis.
Easily accessible Includes recent developments Assumes very little knowledge of differentiable manifolds and functional analysis Particular emphasis on topics related to mirror symmetry (SUSY, Kaehler-Einstein metrics, Tian-Todorov lemma)
Unlike many other texts on differential geometry, this textbook also offers interesting applications to geometric mechanics and general relativity. The first part is a concise and self-contained introduction to the basics of manifolds, differential forms, metrics and curvature. The second part studies applications to mechanics and relativity including the proofs of the Hawking and Penrose singularity theorems. It can be independently used for one-semester courses in either of these subjects. The main ideas are illustrated and further developed by numerous examples and over 300 exercises. Detailed solutions are provided for many of these exercises, making An Introduction to Riemannian Geometry ideal for self-study.
In the last 40 years semi-linear elliptic equations became a central subject of study in the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations. On the one hand, the interest in this area is of a theoretical nature, due to its deep relations to other branches of mathematics, especially linear and nonlinear harmonic analysis, dynamical systems, differential geometry and probability. On the other hand, this study is of interest because of its applications. Equations of this type come up in various areas such as problems of physics and astrophysics, curvature problems in Riemannian geometry, logistic problems related for instance to population models and, most importantly, the study of branching processes and superdiffusions in the theory of probability. The aim of this book is to present a comprehensive study of boundary value problems for linear and semi-linear second order elliptic equations with measure data. We are particularly interested in semi-linear equations with absorption. The interactions between the diffusion operator and the absorption term give rise to a large class of nonlinear phenomena in the study of which singularities and boundary trace play a central role. This book is accessible to graduate students and researchers with a background in real analysis and partial differential equations.
Elliptic equations of critical Sobolev growth have been the target of investigation for decades because they have proved to be of great importance in analysis, geometry, and physics. The equations studied here are of the well-known Yamabe type. They involve Schrödinger operators on the left hand side and a critical nonlinearity on the right hand side. A significant development in the study of such equations occurred in the 1980s. It was discovered that the sequence splits into a solution of the limit equation--a finite sum of bubbles--and a rest that converges strongly to zero in the Sobolev space consisting of square integrable functions whose gradient is also square integrable. This splitting is known as the integral theory for blow-up. In this book, the authors develop the pointwise theory for blow-up. They introduce new ideas and methods that lead to sharp pointwise estimates. These estimates have important applications when dealing with sharp constant problems (a case where the energy is minimal) and compactness results (a case where the energy is arbitrarily large). The authors carefully and thoroughly describe pointwise behavior when the energy is arbitrary. Intended to be as self-contained as possible, this accessible book will interest graduate students and researchers in a range of mathematical fields.
The question of the existence of isometric embeddings of Riemannian manifolds in Euclidean space is already more than a century old. This book presents, in a systematic way, results both local and global and in arbitrary dimension but with a focus on the isometric embedding of surfaces in ${\mathbb R}^3$. The emphasis is on those PDE techniques which are essential to the most important results of the last century. The classic results in this book include the Janet-Cartan Theorem, Nirenberg's solution of the Weyl problem, and Nash's Embedding Theorem, with a simplified proof by Gunther. The book also includes the main results from the past twenty years, both local and global, on the isometric embedding of surfaces in Euclidean 3-space. The work will be indispensable to researchers in the area. Moreover, the authors integrate the results and techniques into a unified whole, providing a good entry point into the area for advanced graduate students or anyone interested in this subject. The authors avoid what is technically complicated. Background knowledge is kept to an essential minimum: a one-semester course in differential geometry and a one-year course in partial differential equations.
"Metric geometry" is an approach to geometry based on the notion of length on a topological space. This approach experienced a very fast development in the last few decades and penetrated into many other mathematical disciplines, such as group theory, dynamical systems, and partial differential equations. The objective of this graduate textbook is twofold: to give a detailed exposition of basic notions and techniques used in the theory of length spaces, and, more generally, to offer an elementary introduction into a broad variety of geometrical topics related to the notion of distance, including Riemannian and Carnot-Caratheodory metrics, the hyperbolic plane, distance-volume inequalities, asymptotic geometry (large scale, coarse), Gromov hyperbolic spaces, convergence of metric spaces, and Alexandrov spaces (non-positively and non-negatively curved spaces).
This textbook for second-year graduate students is intended as an introduction to differential geometry with principal emphasis on Riemannian geometry. Chapter I explains basic definitions and gives the proofs of the important theorems of Whitney and Sard. Chapter II deals with vector fields and differential forms. Chapter III addresses integration of vector fields and p-plane fields. Chapter IV develops the notion of connection on a Riemannian manifold considered as a means to define parallel transport on the manifold. The author also discusses related notions of torsion and curvature, and gives a working knowledge of the covariant derivative. Chapter V specializes on Riemannian manifolds by deducing global properties from local properties of curvature, the final goal being to determine the manifold completely. Chapter VI explores some problems in PDEs suggested by the geometry of manifolds. The author is well-known for his significant contributions to the field of geometry and PDEs - particularly for his work on the Yamabe problem - and for his expository accounts on the subject. The text contains many problems and solutions, permitting the reader to apply the theorems and to see concrete developments of the abstract theory.
Over the past 15 years, there has been a growing need in the medical image computing community for principled methods to process nonlinear geometric data. Riemannian geometry has emerged as one of the most powerful mathematical and computational frameworks for analyzing such data. Riemannian Geometric Statistics in Medical Image Analysis is a complete reference on statistics on Riemannian manifolds and more general nonlinear spaces with applications in medical image analysis. It provides an introduction to the core methodology followed by a presentation of state-of-the-art methods. Beyond medical image computing, the methods described in this book may also apply to other domains such as signal processing, computer vision, geometric deep learning, and other domains where statistics on geometric features appear. As such, the presented core methodology takes its place in the field of geometric statistics, the statistical analysis of data being elements of nonlinear geometric spaces. The foundational material and the advanced techniques presented in the later parts of the book can be useful in domains outside medical imaging and present important applications of geometric statistics methodology Content includes: - The foundations of Riemannian geometric methods for statistics on manifolds with emphasis on concepts rather than on proofs - Applications of statistics on manifolds and shape spaces in medical image computing - Diffeomorphic deformations and their applications As the methods described apply to domains such as signal processing (radar signal processing and brain computer interaction), computer vision (object and face recognition), and other domains where statistics of geometric features appear, this book is suitable for researchers and graduate students in medical imaging, engineering and computer science. - A complete reference covering both the foundations and state-of-the-art methods - Edited and authored by leading researchers in the field - Contains theory, examples, applications, and algorithms - Gives an overview of current research challenges and future applications