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Rauch Comparison Theorem
In Riemannian geometry, the Rauch comparison theorem, named after Harry Rauch, who proved it in 1951, is a fundamental result which relates the sectional curvature of a Riemannian manifold to the rate at which geodesics spread apart. Intuitively, it states that for positive curvature, geodesics tend to converge, while for negative curvature, geodesics tend to spread. The statement of the theorem involves two Riemannian manifolds, and allows to compare the infinitesimal rate at which geodesics spread apart in the two manifolds, provided that their curvature can be compared. Most of the time, one of the two manifolds is a "comparison model", generally a manifold with constant curvature , and the second one is the manifold under study : a bound (either lower or upper) on its sectional curvature is then needed in order to apply Rauch comparison theorem. Statement Let M, \widetilde be Riemannian manifolds, on which are drawn unit speed geodesic segments \gamma : , T\to M and \widetild ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riemannian Geometry
Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a ''Riemannian metric'', i.e. with an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point. This gives, in particular, local notions of angle, length of curves, surface area and volume. From those, some other global quantities can be derived by integrating local contributions. Riemannian geometry originated with the vision of Bernhard Riemann expressed in his inaugural lecture "''Ueber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen''" ("On the Hypotheses on which Geometry is Based.") It is a very broad and abstract generalization of the differential geometry of surfaces in R3. Development of Riemannian geometry resulted in synthesis of diverse results concerning the geometry of surfaces and the behavior of geodesics on them, with techniques that can be applied to the study of differentiable manifolds of higher dim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Rauch
Harry Ernest Rauch (November 9, 1925 – June 18, 1979) was an American mathematician, who worked on complex analysis and differential geometry. He was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and died in White Plains, New York. Rauch earned his PhD in 1948 from Princeton University under Salomon Bochner with thesis ''Generalizations of Some Classic Theorems to the Case of Functions of Several Variables''. From 1949 to 1951 he was a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study. He was in the 1960s a professor at Yeshiva University and from the mid-1970s a professor at the City University of New York. His research was on differential geometry (especially geodesics on ''n''-dimensional manifolds), Riemann surfaces, and theta functions. In the early 1950s Rauch made fundamental progress on the ''quarter-pinched sphere conjecture'' in differential geometry. In the case of positive sectional curvature and simply connected differential manifolds, Rauch proved that, under the conditi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sectional Curvature
In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature ''K''(σ''p'') depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σ''p'' of the tangent space at a point ''p'' of the manifold. It can be defined geometrically as the Gaussian curvature of the surface which has the plane σ''p'' as a tangent plane at ''p'', obtained from geodesics which start at ''p'' in the directions of σ''p'' (in other words, the image of σ''p'' under the exponential map at ''p''). The sectional curvature is a real-valued function on the 2-Grassmannian fiber bundle, bundle over the manifold. The sectional curvature determines the Riemann curvature tensor, curvature tensor completely. Definition Given a Riemannian manifold and two linearly independent tangent vectors at the same point, ''u'' and ''v'', we can define :K(u,v)= Here ''R'' is the Riemann curvature tensor, defined here by the convention R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riemannian Manifold
In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real manifold, real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite Inner product space, inner product ''g''''p'' on the tangent space ''T''''p''''M'' at each point ''p''. The family ''g''''p'' of inner products is called a metric tensor, Riemannian metric (or Riemannian metric tensor). Riemannian geometry is the study of Riemannian manifolds. A common convention is to take ''g'' to be Smoothness, smooth, which means that for any smooth coordinate chart on ''M'', the ''n''2 functions :g\left(\frac,\frac\right):U\to\mathbb are smooth functions. These functions are commonly designated as g_. With further restrictions on the g_, one could also consider Lipschitz continuity, Lipschitz Riemannian metrics or Measurable function, measurable Riemannian metrics, among many other possibilities. A Riemannian metric (tensor) makes it possible to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geodesic
In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. It is a generalization of the notion of a "straight line". The noun '' geodesic'' and the adjective ''geodetic'' come from ''geodesy'', the science of measuring the size and shape of Earth, though many of the underlying principles can be applied to any ellipsoidal geometry. In the original sense, a geodesic was the shortest route between two points on the Earth's surface. For a spherical Earth, it is a segment of a great circle (see also great-circle distance). The term has since been generalized to more abstract mathematical spaces; for example, in graph theory, one might consider a geodesic between two vertices/nodes of a graph. In a Riemannian manifold or submanifold, geodesics are characterised by the property of having vanishin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constant Curvature
In mathematics, constant curvature is a concept from differential geometry. Here, curvature refers to the sectional curvature of a space (more precisely a manifold) and is a single number determining its local geometry. The sectional curvature is said to be constant if it has the same value at every point and for every two-dimensional tangent plane at that point. For example, a sphere is a surface of constant positive curvature. Classification The Riemannian manifolds of constant curvature can be classified into the following three cases: * elliptic geometry – constant positive sectional curvature * Euclidean geometry – constant vanishing sectional curvature * hyperbolic geometry – constant negative sectional curvature. Properties * Every space of constant curvature is locally symmetric, i.e. its curvature tensor is parallel \nabla \mathrm=0. * Every space of constant curvature is locally maximally symmetric, i.e. it has \frac n (n+1) number of local isometries, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conjugate Points
In differential geometry, conjugate points or focal points are, roughly, points that can almost be joined by a 1-parameter family of geodesics. For example, on a sphere, the north-pole and south-pole are connected by any meridian. Another viewpoint is that conjugate points tell when the geodesics fail to be length-minimizing. All geodesics are ''locally'' length-minimizing, but not globally. For example on a sphere, any geodesic passing through the north-pole can be extended to reach the south-pole, and hence any geodesic segment connecting the poles is not (uniquely) ''globally'' length minimizing. This tells us that any pair of antipodal points on the standard 2-sphere are conjugate points.Cheeger, Ebin. ''Comparison Theorems in Riemannian Geometry''. North-Holland Publishing Company, 1975, pp. 17-18. Definition Suppose ''p'' and ''q'' are points on a Riemannian manifold, and \gamma is a geodesic that connects ''p'' and ''q''. Then ''p'' and ''q'' are conjugate points along \ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacobi Field
In Riemannian geometry, a Jacobi field is a vector field along a geodesic \gamma in a Riemannian manifold describing the difference between the geodesic and an "infinitesimally close" geodesic. In other words, the Jacobi fields along a geodesic form the tangent space to the geodesic in the space of all geodesics. They are named after Carl Jacobi. Definitions and properties Jacobi fields can be obtained in the following way: Take a smooth one parameter family of geodesics \gamma_\tau with \gamma_0=\gamma, then :J(t)=\left.\frac\_ is a Jacobi field, and describes the behavior of the geodesics in an infinitesimal neighborhood of a given geodesic \gamma. A vector field ''J'' along a geodesic \gamma is said to be a Jacobi field if it satisfies the Jacobi equation: :\fracJ(t)+R(J(t),\dot\gamma(t))\dot\gamma(t)=0, where ''D'' denotes the covariant derivative with respect to the Levi-Civita connection, ''R'' the Riemann curvature tensor, \dot\gamma(t)=d\gamma(t)/dt the tangent vector ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hessian Matrix
In mathematics, the Hessian matrix or Hessian is a square matrix of second-order partial derivatives of a scalar-valued function, or scalar field. It describes the local curvature of a function of many variables. The Hessian matrix was developed in the 19th century by the German mathematician Ludwig Otto Hesse and later named after him. Hesse originally used the term "functional determinants". Definitions and properties Suppose f : \R^n \to \R is a function taking as input a vector \mathbf \in \R^n and outputting a scalar f(\mathbf) \in \R. If all second-order partial derivatives of f exist, then the Hessian matrix \mathbf of f is a square n \times n matrix, usually defined and arranged as follows: \mathbf H_f= \begin \dfrac & \dfrac & \cdots & \dfrac \\ .2ex \dfrac & \dfrac & \cdots & \dfrac \\ .2ex \vdots & \vdots & \ddots & \vdots \\ .2ex \dfrac & \dfrac & \cdots & \dfrac \end, or, by stating an equation for the coefficients using indices i and j, (\mathbf H_f)_ = \fra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laplacian
In mathematics, the Laplace operator or Laplacian is a differential operator given by the divergence of the gradient of a scalar function on Euclidean space. It is usually denoted by the symbols \nabla\cdot\nabla, \nabla^2 (where \nabla is the nabla operator), or \Delta. In a Cartesian coordinate system, the Laplacian is given by the sum of second partial derivatives of the function with respect to each independent variable. In other coordinate systems, such as cylindrical and spherical coordinates, the Laplacian also has a useful form. Informally, the Laplacian of a function at a point measures by how much the average value of over small spheres or balls centered at deviates from . The Laplace operator is named after the French mathematician Pierre-Simon de Laplace (1749–1827), who first applied the operator to the study of celestial mechanics: the Laplacian of the gravitational potential due to a given mass density distribution is a constant multiple of that densit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ricci Curvature
In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, is a geometric object which is determined by a choice of Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian metric on a manifold. It can be considered, broadly, as a measure of the degree to which the geometry of a given metric tensor differs locally from that of ordinary Euclidean space or pseudo-Euclidean space. The Ricci tensor can be characterized by measurement of how a shape is deformed as one moves along geodesics in the space. In general relativity, which involves the pseudo-Riemannian setting, this is reflected by the presence of the Ricci tensor in the Raychaudhuri equation. Partly for this reason, the Einstein field equations propose that spacetime can be described by a pseudo-Riemannian metric, with a strikingly simple relationship between the Ricci tensor and the matter content of the universe. Like the metric tensor, the Ricci tensor assigns to each tangent space of the manifold a symmetric bili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toponogov's Theorem
In the mathematical field of Riemannian geometry, Toponogov's theorem (named after Victor Andreevich Toponogov) is a triangle comparison theorem. It is one of a family of comparison theorems that quantify the assertion that a pair of geodesics emanating from a point ''p'' spread apart more slowly in a region of high curvature than they would in a region of low curvature. Let ''M'' be an ''m''-dimensional Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature ''K'' satisfying K\ge \delta\,. Let ''pqr'' be a geodesic triangle, i.e. a triangle whose sides are geodesics, in ''M'', such that the geodesic ''pq'' is minimal and if δ > ''0'', the length of the side ''pr'' is less than \pi / \sqrt \delta. Let ''p''′''q''′''r''′ be a geodesic triangle in the model space ''M''δ, i.e. the simply connected space of constant curvature δ, such that the lengths of sides ''p′q′'' and ''p′r′'' are equal to that of ''pq'' and ''pr'' respectively and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
