Differential Forms for Cartan-Klein Geometry

Differential Forms for Cartan-Klein Geometry
Author: Jose G. Vargas
Publisher: Abramis
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2012-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781845495299

This book lets readers understand differential geometry with differential forms. It is unique in providing detailed treatments of topics not normally found elsewhere, like the programs of B. Riemann and F. Klein in the second half of the 19th century, and their being superseded by E. Cartan in the twentieth. Several conservation laws are presented in a unified way. The Einstein 3-form rather than the Einstein tensor is emphasized; their relationship is shown. Examples are chosen for their pedagogic value. Numerous advanced comments are sprinkled throughout the text. The equations of structure are addressed in different ways. First, in affine and Euclidean spaces, where torsion and curvature simply happen to be zero. In a second approach, the 2-torus and the punctured plane and 2-sphere are endowed with the "Columbus connection," torsion becoming a concept which could have been understood even by sailors of the 15th century. Those equations are then presented as the breaking of integrability conditions for connection equations. Finally, a topological definition brings together the concepts of connection and equations of structure. These options should meet the needs and learning objectives of readers with very different backgrounds. Dr Howard E Brandt

Differential Geometry

Differential Geometry
Author: R.W. Sharpe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2000-11-21
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9780387947327

Cartan geometries were the first examples of connections on a principal bundle. They seem to be almost unknown these days, in spite of the great beauty and conceptual power they confer on geometry. The aim of the present book is to fill the gap in the literature on differential geometry by the missing notion of Cartan connections. Although the author had in mind a book accessible to graduate students, potential readers would also include working differential geometers who would like to know more about what Cartan did, which was to give a notion of "espaces généralisés" (= Cartan geometries) generalizing homogeneous spaces (= Klein geometries) in the same way that Riemannian geometry generalizes Euclidean geometry. In addition, physicists will be interested to see the fully satisfying way in which their gauge theory can be truly regarded as geometry.

Cartan for Beginners

Cartan for Beginners
Author: Thomas Andrew Ivey
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2003
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0821833758

This book is an introduction to Cartan's approach to differential geometry. Two central methods in Cartan's geometry are the theory of exterior differential systems and the method of moving frames. This book presents thorough and modern treatments of both subjects, including their applications to both classic and contemporary problems. It begins with the classical geometry of surfaces and basic Riemannian geometry in the language of moving frames, along with an elementary introduction to exterior differential systems. Key concepts are developed incrementally with motivating examples leading to definitions, theorems, and proofs. Once the basics of the methods are established, the authors develop applications and advanced topics.One notable application is to complex algebraic geometry, where they expand and update important results from projective differential geometry. The book features an introduction to $G$-structures and a treatment of the theory of connections. The Cartan machinery is also applied to obtain explicit solutions of PDEs via Darboux's method, the method of characteristics, and Cartan's method of equivalence. This text is suitable for a one-year graduate course in differential geometry, and parts of it can be used for a one-semester course. It has numerous exercises and examples throughout. It will also be useful to experts in areas such as PDEs and algebraic geometry who want to learn how moving frames and exterior differential systems apply to their fields.

Differential Geometry for Physicists and Mathematicians

Differential Geometry for Physicists and Mathematicians
Author: José G. Vargas
Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company Incorporated
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2014
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9789814566391

I. Introduction. 1. Orientations -- II. Tools. 2. Differential forms -- 3. Vector spaces and tensor products -- 4. Exterior differentiation -- III. Two Klein geometries. 5. Affine Klein geometry -- 6. Euclidean Klein geometry -- IV. Cartan connections. 7. Generalized geometry made simple -- 8. Affine connections -- 9. Euclidean connections -- 10. Riemannian spaces and pseudo-spaces -- V. The future? 11. Extensions of Cartan -- 12. Understand the past to imagine the future -- 13. A book of farewells

Differential Forms and the Geometry of General Relativity

Differential Forms and the Geometry of General Relativity
Author: Tevian Dray
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2014-10-20
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1466510005

Differential Forms and the Geometry of General Relativity provides readers with a coherent path to understanding relativity. Requiring little more than calculus and some linear algebra, it helps readers learn just enough differential geometry to grasp the basics of general relativity. The book contains two intertwined but distinct halves. Designed for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in mathematics or physics, most of the text requires little more than familiarity with calculus and linear algebra. The first half presents an introduction to general relativity that describes some of the surprising implications of relativity without introducing more formalism than necessary. This nonstandard approach uses differential forms rather than tensor calculus and minimizes the use of "index gymnastics" as much as possible. The second half of the book takes a more detailed look at the mathematics of differential forms. It covers the theory behind the mathematics used in the first half by emphasizing a conceptual understanding instead of formal proofs. The book provides a language to describe curvature, the key geometric idea in general relativity.

Differential Geometry For Physicists And Mathematicians: Moving Frames And Differential Forms: From Euclid Past Riemann

Differential Geometry For Physicists And Mathematicians: Moving Frames And Differential Forms: From Euclid Past Riemann
Author: Jose G Vargas
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2014-03-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9814566411

This is a book that the author wishes had been available to him when he was student. It reflects his interest in knowing (like expert mathematicians) the most relevant mathematics for theoretical physics, but in the style of physicists. This means that one is not facing the study of a collection of definitions, remarks, theorems, corollaries, lemmas, etc. but a narrative — almost like a story being told — that does not impede sophistication and deep results.It covers differential geometry far beyond what general relativists perceive they need to know. And it introduces readers to other areas of mathematics that are of interest to physicists and mathematicians, but are largely overlooked. Among these is Clifford Algebra and its uses in conjunction with differential forms and moving frames. It opens new research vistas that expand the subject matter.In an appendix on the classical theory of curves and surfaces, the author slashes not only the main proofs of the traditional approach, which uses vector calculus, but even existing treatments that also use differential forms for the same purpose.

First Steps in Differential Geometry

First Steps in Differential Geometry
Author: Andrew McInerney
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2013-07-09
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1461477328

Differential geometry arguably offers the smoothest transition from the standard university mathematics sequence of the first four semesters in calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations to the higher levels of abstraction and proof encountered at the upper division by mathematics majors. Today it is possible to describe differential geometry as "the study of structures on the tangent space," and this text develops this point of view. This book, unlike other introductory texts in differential geometry, develops the architecture necessary to introduce symplectic and contact geometry alongside its Riemannian cousin. The main goal of this book is to bring the undergraduate student who already has a solid foundation in the standard mathematics curriculum into contact with the beauty of higher mathematics. In particular, the presentation here emphasizes the consequences of a definition and the careful use of examples and constructions in order to explore those consequences.

Exterior Differential Systems

Exterior Differential Systems
Author: Robert L. Bryant
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 483
Release: 2013-06-29
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1461397146

This book gives a treatment of exterior differential systems. It will in clude both the general theory and various applications. An exterior differential system is a system of equations on a manifold defined by equating to zero a number of exterior differential forms. When all the forms are linear, it is called a pfaffian system. Our object is to study its integral manifolds, i. e. , submanifolds satisfying all the equations of the system. A fundamental fact is that every equation implies the one obtained by exterior differentiation, so that the complete set of equations associated to an exterior differential system constitutes a differential ideal in the algebra of all smooth forms. Thus the theory is coordinate-free and computations typically have an algebraic character; however, even when coordinates are used in intermediate steps, the use of exterior algebra helps to efficiently guide the computations, and as a consequence the treatment adapts well to geometrical and physical problems. A system of partial differential equations, with any number of inde pendent and dependent variables and involving partial derivatives of any order, can be written as an exterior differential system. In this case we are interested in integral manifolds on which certain coordinates remain independent. The corresponding notion in exterior differential systems is the independence condition: certain pfaffian forms remain linearly indepen dent. Partial differential equations and exterior differential systems with an independence condition are essentially the same object.

Introduction to Differential Geometry

Introduction to Differential Geometry
Author: Joel W. Robbin
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 426
Release: 2022-01-12
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3662643405

This textbook is suitable for a one semester lecture course on differential geometry for students of mathematics or STEM disciplines with a working knowledge of analysis, linear algebra, complex analysis, and point set topology. The book treats the subject both from an extrinsic and an intrinsic view point. The first chapters give a historical overview of the field and contain an introduction to basic concepts such as manifolds and smooth maps, vector fields and flows, and Lie groups, leading up to the theorem of Frobenius. Subsequent chapters deal with the Levi-Civita connection, geodesics, the Riemann curvature tensor, a proof of the Cartan-Ambrose-Hicks theorem, as well as applications to flat spaces, symmetric spaces, and constant curvature manifolds. Also included are sections about manifolds with nonpositive sectional curvature, the Ricci tensor, the scalar curvature, and the Weyl tensor. An additional chapter goes beyond the scope of a one semester lecture course and deals with subjects such as conjugate points and the Morse index, the injectivity radius, the group of isometries and the Myers-Steenrod theorem, and Donaldson's differential geometric approach to Lie algebra theory.

On the Hypotheses Which Lie at the Bases of Geometry

On the Hypotheses Which Lie at the Bases of Geometry
Author: Bernhard Riemann
Publisher: Birkhäuser
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2016-04-19
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 3319260421

This book presents William Clifford’s English translation of Bernhard Riemann’s classic text together with detailed mathematical, historical and philosophical commentary. The basic concepts and ideas, as well as their mathematical background, are provided, putting Riemann’s reasoning into the more general and systematic perspective achieved by later mathematicians and physicists (including Helmholtz, Ricci, Weyl, and Einstein) on the basis of his seminal ideas. Following a historical introduction that positions Riemann’s work in the context of his times, the history of the concept of space in philosophy, physics and mathematics is systematically presented. A subsequent chapter on the reception and influence of the text accompanies the reader from Riemann’s times to contemporary research. Not only mathematicians and historians of the mathematical sciences, but also readers from other disciplines or those with an interest in physics or philosophy will find this work both appealing and insightful.