Geometric analysis is a

mathematical Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

discipline where tools from

differential equation In mathematics, a differential equation is an equation that relates one or more unknown functions and their derivatives. In applications, the functions generally represent physical quantities, the derivatives represent their rates of change, a ...

s, especially elliptic partial differential equations (PDEs), are used to establish new results in differential geometry and

differential topology In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with the topological properties and smooth properties of smooth manifolds. In this sense differential topology is distinct from the closely related field of differential geometry, which ...

. The use of

linear Linearity is the property of a mathematical relationship ('' function'') that can be graphically represented as a straight line. Linearity is closely related to '' proportionality''. Examples in physics include rectilinear motion, the linear ...

elliptic PDEs dates at least as far back as

Hodge theory In mathematics, Hodge theory, named after W. V. D. Hodge, is a method for studying the cohomology groups of a smooth manifold ''M'' using partial differential equations. The key observation is that, given a Riemannian metric on ''M'', every coh ...

. More recently, it refers largely to the use of nonlinear partial differential equations to study geometric and topological properties of spaces, such as submanifolds of

Euclidean space Euclidean space is the fundamental space of geometry, intended to represent physical space. Originally, that is, in Euclid's ''Elements'', it was the three-dimensional space of Euclidean geometry, but in modern mathematics there are Euclidean sp ...

Riemannian manifold In differential geometry, a Riemannian manifold or Riemannian space , so called after the German mathematician Bernhard Riemann, is a real, smooth manifold ''M'' equipped with a positive-definite inner product ''g'p'' on the tangent spac ...

s, and

symplectic manifold In differential geometry, a subject of mathematics, a symplectic manifold is a smooth manifold, M , equipped with a closed nondegenerate differential 2-form \omega , called the symplectic form. The study of symplectic manifolds is called s ...

s. This approach dates back to the work by

Tibor Radó Tibor Radó (June 2, 1895 – December 29, 1965) was a Hungarian mathematician who moved to the United States after World War I. Biography Radó was born in Budapest and between 1913 and 1915 attended the Polytechnic Institute, studying ...

and

Jesse Douglas Jesse Douglas (3 July 1897 – 7 September 1965) was an American mathematician and Fields Medalist known for his general solution to Plateau's problem. Life and career He was born to a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Sarah (née ...

on minimal surfaces, John Forbes Nash Jr. on

isometric The term ''isometric'' comes from the Greek for "having equal measurement". isometric may mean: * Cubic crystal system, also called isometric crystal system * Isometre, a rhythmic technique in music. * "Isometric (Intro)", a song by Madeon from ...

embedding In mathematics, an embedding (or imbedding) is one instance of some mathematical structure contained within another instance, such as a group that is a subgroup. When some object X is said to be embedded in another object Y, the embedding is giv ...

s of Riemannian manifolds into Euclidean space, work by Louis Nirenberg on the Minkowski problem and the Weyl problem, and work by Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov and Aleksei Pogorelov on

convex Convex or convexity may refer to: Science and technology * Convex lens, in optics Mathematics * Convex set, containing the whole line segment that joins points ** Convex polygon, a polygon which encloses a convex set of points ** Convex polytop ...

hypersurface In geometry, a hypersurface is a generalization of the concepts of hyperplane, plane curve, and surface. A hypersurface is a manifold or an algebraic variety of dimension , which is embedded in an ambient space of dimension , generally a Eucl ...

s. In the 1980s fundamental contributions by Karen Uhlenbeck,Jackson, Allyn. (2019)
Founder of geometric analysis honored with Abel Prize
Retrieved 20 March 2019. Clifford Taubes,

Shing-Tung Yau Shing-Tung Yau (; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician and the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. In April 2022, Yau announced retirement from Harvard to become Chair Professor of mathem ...

, Richard Schoen, and Richard Hamilton launched a particularly exciting and productive era of geometric analysis that continues to this day. A celebrated achievement was the solution to the

Poincaré conjecture In the mathematical field of geometric topology, the Poincaré conjecture (, , ) is a theorem about the characterization of the 3-sphere, which is the hypersphere that bounds the unit ball in four-dimensional space. Originally conjectured b ...

Grigori Perelman Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman ( rus, links=no, Григорий Яковлевич Перельман, p=ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪtɕ pʲɪrʲɪlʲˈman, a=Ru-Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman.oga; born 13 June 1966) is a Russian mathemati ...

, completing a program initiated and largely carried out by Richard Hamilton.

Scope

The scope of geometric analysis includes both the use of geometrical methods in the study of

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...

s (when it is also known as "geometric PDE"), and the application of the theory of partial differential equations to geometry. It incorporates problems involving curves and surfaces, or domains with curved boundaries, but also the study of

s in arbitrary dimension. The

calculus of variations The calculus of variations (or Variational Calculus) is a field of mathematical analysis that uses variations, which are small changes in functions and functionals, to find maxima and minima of functionals: mappings from a set of functions t ...

is sometimes regarded as part of geometric analysis, because differential equations arising from variational principles have a strong geometric content. Geometric analysis also includes global analysis, which concerns the study of differential equations on

manifold In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an n-dimensional manifold, or ''n-manifold'' for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a ...

s, and the relationship between differential equations and

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ho ...

. The following is a partial list of major topics within geometric analysis: *

Gauge theory In physics, a gauge theory is a type of field theory in which the Lagrangian (and hence the dynamics of the system itself) does not change (is invariant) under local transformations according to certain smooth families of operations (Lie groups ...

Harmonic map In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a smooth map between Riemannian manifolds is called harmonic if its coordinate representatives satisfy a certain nonlinear partial differential equation. This partial differential equation for a ...

s * Kähler–Einstein metrics *

Mean curvature flow In the field of differential geometry in mathematics, mean curvature flow is an example of a geometric flow of hypersurfaces in a Riemannian manifold (for example, smooth surfaces in 3-dimensional Euclidean space). Intuitively, a family of s ...

* Minimal submanifolds * Positive energy theorems * Pseudoholomorphic curves *

Ricci flow In the mathematical fields of differential geometry and geometric analysis, the Ricci flow ( , ), sometimes also referred to as Hamilton's Ricci flow, is a certain partial differential equation for a Riemannian metric. It is often said to be ana ...

* Yamabe problem * Yang–Mills equations

Scope

References

Further reading