In this article we introduce new affinely invariant points---`special parabolic points'---on the parabolic set of a generic surface $M$ in real 4-space, associated with symmetries in the 2-parameter family of reflexions of $M$ in points of itself. The parabolic set itself is detected in this way, and each arc is given a sign, which changes at the special points, where the family has an additional degree of symmetry. Other points of $M$ which are detected by the family of reflexions include inflexion points of real and imaginary type, and the first of these is also associated with sign changes on the parabolic set. We show how to compute the special points globally for the case where $M$ is given in Monge form and give some examples illustrating the birth of special parbolic points in a 1-parameter family of surfaces. The tool we use from singularity theory is the contact classification of certain symmetric maps from the plane to the plane and we give the beginning of this classification, including versal unfoldings which we relate to the geometry of $M$.
These lecture notes explain the geometry and discuss some of the analytical questions underlying image registration within the framework of large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping (LDDMM) used in computational anatomy.
If Pi: M -> B is an onto smooth maximal rank map between complete Riemannian manifolds M and B with bounded geometry, we prove sufficient conditions for M to be roughly isometric to the Riemannian product FxB, where F is a fiber of M.
In this article, we present recent developments of information geometry, namely, geometry of the Fisher metric, dualistic structures and divergences on the space of probability measures, particularly the theory of geodesics of the Fisher metric. Moreover, we consider several facts concerning the barycenter of probability measures on the ideal boundary of a Hadamard manifold from a viewpoint of the information geometry.
J.Eells and L. Lemaire introduced k-harmonic maps, and T. Ichiyama, J. Inoguchi and H.Urakawa showed the first variation formula. In this paper, we give the second variation formula of k-harmonic maps, and show non-existence theorem of proper k-harmonic maps into a Riemannian manifold of non-positive curvature (k >= 2). We also study k-harmonic maps into the product Riemannian manifold, and describe the ordinary differential equations of 3-harmonic curves and 4-harmonic curves into a sphere, and show their non-trivial solutions.
The purpose of this paper is to study the harmonicity of maps to or from para-Sasakian manifolds. We derive the condition for the tension field of paraholomorphic map between almost para-Hermitian manifold and para-Sasakian manifold. The necessary and sufficient condition for a paraholomorphic map between para-Sasakian manifolds to be parapluriharmonic are shown and a non-trivial example is presented for its illustrations.
We give conditions on the Lee vector field of an almost Hermitian manifold such that any holomorphic map from this manifold into a (1,2)-symplectic manifold must satisfy the fourth-order condition of being biharmonic, hence generalizing the Lichnerowicz theorem on harmonic maps. These third-order non-linear conditions are shown to greatly simplify on l.c.K. manifolds and construction methods and examples are given in all dimensions.
We study the flat geometry of the least degenerate singularity of a singular surface in $\mathbb R^4$, the $I_{1}$ singularity parametrised by $(x,y)\mapsto(x,xy,y^{2},y^{3})$. This singularity appears generically when projecting a regular surface in $\mathbb R^5$ orthogonally to $\mathbb R^4$ along a tangent direction. We obtain a generic normal form for $I_1$ invariant under diffeomorphisms in the source and isometries in the target. We then consider the contact with hyperplanes by classifying submersions which preserve the image of $I_1$. The main tool is the study of the singularities of t…
Our purpose is to use a Darboux homogenous derivative to understand the harmonic maps with values in homogeneous space. We present a characterization of these harmonic maps from the geometry of homogeneous space. Furthermore, our work covers all type of invariant geometry in homogeneous space.
The goal of this article is to give an elementary introduction to Dirac geometry and group-valued moment maps, via pure spinors. The material is based on my lectures at the summer school on 'Poisson geometry in Mathematics and Physics' at Keio University, June 2006.
We consider codimension 2 sphere congruences in pseudo-conformal geometry that are harmonic with respect to the conformal structure of an orthogonal surface. We characterise the orthogonal surfaces of such congruences as either $S$-Willmore surfaces, quasi-umbilical surfaces, constant mean curvature surfaces in 3-dimensional space forms or surfaces of constant lightlike mean curvature in 3-dimensional lightcones. We then investigate Bryant's quartic differential in this context and show that generically this is divergence free if and only if the surface under consideration is either superconfo…
Segre embedding was introduced by C. Segre (1863--1924) in his famous 1891 article \cite{segre}. The Segre embedding plays an important roles in algebraic geometry as well as in differential geometry, mathematical physics, and coding theory. In this article, we survey main results on Segre embedding in differential geometry. Moreover, we also present recent differential geometric results on maps and immersions which are constructed in ways similar to Segre embedding.
We discuss homotopy properties of endpoint maps for affine control systems. We prove that these maps are Hurewicz fibrations with respect to some $W^{1,p}$ topology on the space of trajectories, for a certain $p>1$. We study critical points of geometric costs for these affine control systems, proving that if the base manifold is compact then the number of their critical points is infinite (we use Lusternik-Schnirelmann category combined with the Hurewicz property). In the special case where the control system is subriemannian this result can be read as the corresponding version of Serre's theo…
Consider a closed non-degenerate 3-form $ω$ with an infinitesimal action of a Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$. Motivated by the fact that the observables associated to $ω$ form a Lie 2-algebra, we introduce homotopy moment maps defined on a Lie 2-algebra rather than just on the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{g}$. We formulate existence criteria and provide a construction for such homotopy moment maps, by characterizing them in terms of cohomology.
The main theorem of this paper is a result of estimated transversality with respect to stratifications of jet spaces in the approximately holomorphic category over an almost-complex manifold. The notion of asymptotic ampleness of complex vector bundles over an almost-complex manifold is also discussed, as well as applications to the construction of maps with generic singularities from compact symplectic manifolds to projective spaces.
We study the hypersymplectic geometry of the moduli space of solutions to Hitchin's harmonic map equations on a $G$-bundle. This is the split-signature analogue of Hitchin's Higgs bundle moduli space. Due to the lack of definiteness, this moduli space is globally not well-behaved. However, we are able to construct a smooth open set consisting of solutions with small Higgs field, on which we can investigate the hypersymplectic geometry. Finally, we reinterpret our results in terms of the Riemannian geometry of the moduli space of $G$-connections.
We first generalize the operation of formal exterior differential in the case of finite dimensional fibered manifolds and then we extend it to certain bundles of smooth maps. In order to characterize the operator order of some morphisms between our bundles of smooth maps, we introduce the concept of fiberwise $(k,r)$-jet. The relations to the Euler-Lagrange morphism of the variational calculus are described.
In this paper, we give an estimate of sub-Laplacian of Riemannian distance functions in pseudo-Hermitian geometry which plays a similar role as Laplacian comparison theorem in Riemannian geometry, and deduce a prior horizontal gradient estimate of pseudo-harmonic maps from pseudo-Hermitian manifolds to regular balls of Riemannian manifolds. As an application, Liouville theorem is established under the conditions of nonnegative pseudo-Hermitian Ricci curvature and vanishing pseudo-Hermitian torsion. Moreover, we obtain the existence of pseudo-harmonic maps from complete noncompact pseudo-Hermit…
We introduce a natural notion of holomorphic map between generalized complex manifolds and we prove some related results on Dirac structures and generalized Kaehler manifolds.
We study the asymptotic behaviour of 1-parameter subgroups with respect to Hofer's metric when the underlying symplectic manifold is an open surface of infinite area. We prove that, depending on the topology of the level sets of the Hamiltonian H, the distance either is bounded or behaves asymptotically linear. Moreover, the slope can be calculated explicitly as the difference of two distinguished critical values of H.
We study a discrete dynamical system designed to find a 'most holomorphic' connection on a smooth complex vector bundle $E$. We examine the relation between the distance of the chern classes of $E$ from the $(p,p)$ axis of the Hodge diamond and singularity formation. Canonical connections and canonical metrics pulled back from Grassmannians play a major role, and we review their differential geometry. As an exercise in the geometry of canonical connections, we include an expression for the curvature in terms of heat kernels.
We extend harmonic map techniques to the setting of more general differential equations in conformal geometry. We obtain an extension of Siu's rigidity to Kahler-Weyl geometry and apply the latter to Vaisman's conjecture. Other applications include topological obstructions to the existence of Kahler-Weyl structures. For example, we show that no co-compact lattice in SO(1,n), n>2, can be the fundamental group of a compact Kahler-Weyl manifold of certain type.
This preliminary report studies immersed surfaces of constant mean curvature in $H^3$ through their {\it adjusted Gauss maps} (as harmonic maps in $S^2$) and their {\it adjusted frames} in SU(2). Lawson's correspondence between Euclidean CMC surfaces and their hyperbolic cousins is interpreted here under a different perspective: the equivalence of their Weierstrass representations (normalized potentials). This work also presents a construction algorithm for the moving frame, the adjusted frame, their Maurer-Cartan forms, and ultimately the CMC immersion.
We study Dirac structures associated with Manin pairs (\d,\g) and give a Dirac geometric approach to Hamiltonian spaces with D/G-valued moment maps, originally introduced by Alekseev and Kosmann-Schwarzbach in terms of quasi-Poisson structures. We explain how these two distinct frameworks are related to each other, proving that they lead to isomorphic categories of Hamiltonian spaces. We stress the connection between the viewpoint of Dirac geometry and equivariant differential forms. The paper discusses various examples, including q-Hamiltonian spaces and Poisson-Lie group actions, explaining …
We identify a condition for regularity of optimal transport maps that requires only three derivatives of the cost function, for measures given by densities that are only bounded above and below. This new condition is equivalent to the weak Ma-Trudinger-Wang condition when the cost is $C^4$. Moreover, we only require (non-strict) c-convexity of the support of the target measure, removing the hypothesis of strong c-convexity in a previous result of Figalli, Kim, and McCann, but at the added cost of assuming compact containment of the supports of both the source and target measures.
By Liouville's theorem, in dimensions 3 or more conformal transformations form a finite-dimensional group, an apparent drastic departure from the 2-dimensional case. We propose a derived enhancement of the conformal Lie algebra which is an infinite-dimensional dg-Lie algebra incorporating not only symmetries but also deformations of the conformal structure. Our approach is based on (derived) deformation theory of the ambitwistor space of complex null-geodesics.
This paper points out the usefulness of the concept of derivation along a map in many problems in Geometry and Physics. In particular it will be shown that this approach allows us to translate the usual concepts arising in Geometrical Mechanics, when appropriately written in a new way, to the framework of Supermechanics.
We describe the geometry of generic heterotic backgrounds preserving minimal supersymmetry in four dimensions using the language of generalised geometry. They are characterised by an $SU(3)\times Spin(6+n)$ structure within $O(6,6+n)\times\mathbb{R}^+$ generalised geometry. Supersymmetry of the background is encoded in the existence of an involutive subbundle of the generalised tangent bundle and the vanishing of a moment map for the action of diffeomorphisms and gauge symmetries. We give both the superpotential and the Kähler potential for a generic background, showing that the latter defines…
We consider D-branes in string theory and address the issue of how to describe them mathematically as a fundamental object (as opposed to a solitonic object) of string theory in the realm in differential and symplectic geometry. The notion of continuous maps, $k$-times differentiable maps, and smooth maps from an Azumaya/matrix manifold with a fundamental module to a (commutative) real manifold $Y$ is developed. Such maps are meant to describe D-branes or matrix branes in string theory when these branes are light and soft with only small enough or even zero brane-tension. When $Y$ is a symplec…
We lay down an elementary yet fundamental lemma concerning a finite algebraicness property of a smooth map from an Azumaya/matrix manifold with a fundamental module to a smooth manifold. This gives us a starting point to build a synthetic (synonymously, $C^{\infty}$-algebraic) symplectic geometry and calibrated geometry that are both tailored to and guided by D-brane phenomena in string theory and along the line of our previous works D(11.1) (arXiv:1406.0929 [math.DG]) and D(11.2) (arXiv:1412.0771 [hep-th]).
Given a multisymplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ and a Lie algebra $\frak{g}$ acting on it by infinitesimal symmetries, Fregier-Rogers-Zambon define a homotopy (co-)moment as an $L_{\infty}$-algebra-homomorphism from $\frak{g}$ to the observable algebra $L(M,ω)$ associated to $(M,ω)$, in analogy with and generalizing the notion of a co-moment map in symplectic geometry. We give a cohomological characterization of existence and unicity for homotopy co-moment maps and show its utility in multisymplectic geometry by applying it to special cases as exact multisymplectic manifolds and simple Lie groups and…
This thesis introduces the notion of "relative gerbes" for smooth maps of manifolds, and discusses their differential geometry. The equivalence classes of relative gerbes are classified by the relative integral cohomology in degree three. Furthermore, by using the concept of relative gerbes, the pre-quantization of Lie group-valued moment maps is developed, and its equivalence with the pre-quantization of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian loop group spaces is established.
We analyse the geometry of generic Minkowski $\mathcal{N}=1$, $D=4$ flux compactifications in string theory, the default backgrounds for string model building. In M-theory they are the natural string theoretic extensions of $\mathrm{G}_2$ holonomy manifolds. In type II theories, they extend the notion of Calabi--Yau geometry and include the class of flux backgrounds based on generalised complex structures first considered by Graña et al. (GMPT). Using $\mathrm{E}_{7(7)}\times\mathbb{R}^+$ generalised geometry we show that these compactifications are characterised by an $\mathrm{SU}(7)\subset\m…
The classical Fundamental Theorem of Affine Geometry states that for $n\geq 2$, any bijection of $n$-dimensional Euclidean space that maps lines to lines (as sets) is given by an affine map. We consider an analogous characterization of affine automorphisms for compact quotients, and establish it for tori: A bijection of an n-dimensional torus ($n\geq 2$) is affine if and only if it maps lines to lines.
Harmonic maps from S^2 to S^2 are all weakly conformal, and so are represented by rational maps. This paper presents a study of the L^2 metric gamma on M_n, the space of degree n harmonic maps S^2 -> S^2, or equivalently, the space of rational maps of degree n. It is proved that gamma is Kaehler with respect to a certain natural complex structure on M_n. The case n=1 is considered in detail: explicit formulae for gamma and its holomorphic sectional, Ricci and scalar curvatures are obtained, it is shown that the space has finite volume and diameter and codimension 2 boundary at infinity, and a …
This is one of a series of papers examining the interplay between differentiation theory for Lipschitz maps, X-->V, and bi-Lipschitz nonembeddability, where X is a metric measure space and V is a Banach space. Here, we consider the case V=L^1 where differentiability fails. We establish another kind of differentiability for certain X, including R^n and H, the Heisenberg group with its Carnot-Cartheodory metric. It follows that H does not bi-Lipschitz embed into L^1, as conjectured by J. Lee and A. Naor. When combined with their work, this provides a natural counter example to the Goemans-Linial…
Harmonic maps from Riemann surfaces arise from a conformally invariant variational problem. Therefore, on one hand, they are intimately connected with moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces, and on the other hand, because the conformal group is noncompact, constitute a prototype for the formation of singularities, the so-called bubbles, in geometric analysis. In theoretical physics, they arise from the nonlinear $σ$-model of quantum field theory. That model possesses a supersymmetric extension, coupling a harmonic map like field with a nonlinear spinor field. In the physical model, that spinor fiel…
The first purpose of this paper is to generalize the well-known Maslov indices of maps of open Riemann surfaces with boundary lying on Lagrangian submanifolds to maps with boundary lying on coisotropic submanifolds in symplectic manifolds. For this purpose, we first define the notion of {\it Maslov loops} of coisotropic Grassmanians and their indices. Then we introduce the notions of {\it transverse Maslov bundle} of coisotropic submanifolds, and {\it gradable coisotropic submanifolds}. We then define {\it graded coisotropic submanifolds} and the {\it coisotropic Maslov index} of the maps with…
Multisymplectic geometry admits an operation that has no counterpart in symplectic geometry, namely, taking the product of two multisymplectic manifolds endowed with the wedge product of the multisymplectic forms. We show that there is an L-infinity-embedding of the L-infinity-algebra of observables of the individual factors into the observables of the product, and that homotopy moment maps for the individual factors induce a homotopy moment map for the product. As a by-product, we associate to every multisymplectic form a curved L-infinity-algebra, whose curvature is the multisymplectic form …
In this Part II of D(11), we introduce new objects: super-$C^k$-schemes and Azumaya super-$C^k$-manifolds with a fundamental module (or, synonymously, matrix super-$C^k$-manifolds with a fundamental module), and extend the study in D(11.1) ([L-Y3], arXiv:1406.0929 [math.DG]) to define the notion of `differentiable maps from an Azumaya/matrix supermanifold with a fundamental module to a real manifold or supermanifold'. This allows us to introduce the notion of `fermionic D-branes' in two different styles, one parallels Ramond-Neveu-Schwarz fermionic string and the other Green-Schwarz fermionic …
