In conformal differential geometry, a conformal connection is a Cartan connection on an n-dimensional manifold M arising as a deformation of the Klein geometry given by the celestial n-sphere, viewed as the homogeneous space
where P is the stabilizer of a fixed null line through the origin in Rn+2, in the orthochronous Lorentz group O+(n+1,1) in n+2 dimensions.
Any manifold equipped with a conformal structure has a canonical conformal connection called the normal Cartan connection.
A conformal connection on an n-manifold M is a Cartan geometry modelled on the conformal sphere, where the latter is viewed as a homogeneous space for O+(n+1,1). In other words, it is an O+(n+1,1)-bundle equipped with
such that the solder form induced by these data is an isomorphism.
Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, defined as smooth manifolds with a Riemannian metric. 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.
In mathematics, Thurston's geometrization conjecture states that each of certain three-dimensional topological spaces has a unique geometric structure that can be associated with it. It is an analogue of the uniformization theorem for two-dimensional surfaces, which states that every simply connected Riemann surface can be given one of three geometries . In three dimensions, it is not always possible to assign a single geometry to a whole topological space. Instead, the geometrization conjecture states that every closed 3-manifold can be decomposed in a canonical way into pieces that each have one of eight types of geometric structure. The conjecture was proposed by William Thurston (1982), and implies several other conjectures, such as the Poincaré conjecture and Thurston's elliptization conjecture.
In mathematics, the Erlangen program is a method of characterizing geometries based on group theory and projective geometry. It was published by Felix Klein in 1872 as Vergleichende Betrachtungen über neuere geometrische Forschungen. It is named after the University Erlangen-Nürnberg, where Klein worked.
In mathematics, conformal geometry is the study of the set of angle-preserving (conformal) transformations on a space.
In mathematics, a homogeneous space is, very informally, a space that looks the same everywhere, as you move through it, with movement given by the action of a group. Homogeneous spaces occur in the theories of Lie groups, algebraic groups and topological groups. More precisely, a homogeneous space for a group G is a non-empty manifold or topological space X on which G acts transitively. The elements of G are called the symmetries of X. A special case of this is when the group G in question is the automorphism group of the space X – here "automorphism group" can mean isometry group, diffeomorphism group, or homeomorphism group. In this case, X is homogeneous if intuitively X looks locally the same at each point, either in the sense of isometry, diffeomorphism, or homeomorphism (topology). Some authors insist that the action of G be faithful, although the present article does not. Thus there is a group action of G on X which can be thought of as preserving some "geometric structure" on X, and making X into a single G-orbit.
In mathematics, a generalized flag variety is a homogeneous space whose points are flags in a finite-dimensional vector space V over a field F. When F is the real or complex numbers, a generalized flag variety is a smooth or complex manifold, called a real or complexflag manifold. Flag varieties are naturally projective varieties.
Élie Joseph Cartan was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems, and differential geometry. He also made significant contributions to general relativity and indirectly to quantum mechanics. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century.
In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a Cartan connection is a flexible generalization of the notion of an affine connection. It may also be regarded as a specialization of the general concept of a principal connection, in which the geometry of the principal bundle is tied to the geometry of the base manifold using a solder form. Cartan connections describe the geometry of manifolds modelled on homogeneous spaces.
In mathematics, a moving frame is a flexible generalization of the notion of an ordered basis of a vector space often used to study the extrinsic differential geometry of smooth manifolds embedded in a homogeneous space.
In differential geometry, an affine connection is a geometric object on a smooth manifold which connects nearby tangent spaces, so it permits tangent vector fields to be differentiated as if they were functions on the manifold with values in a fixed vector space. Connections are among the simplest methods of defining differentiation of the sections of vector bundles.
In differential geometry, the holonomy of a connection on a smooth manifold is a general geometrical consequence of the curvature of the connection measuring the extent to which parallel transport around closed loops fails to preserve the geometrical data being transported. For flat connections, the associated holonomy is a type of monodromy and is an inherently global notion. For curved connections, holonomy has nontrivial local and global features.
In mathematics, a symmetric space is a Riemannian manifold whose group of symmetries contains an inversion symmetry about every point. This can be studied with the tools of Riemannian geometry, leading to consequences in the theory of holonomy; or algebraically through Lie theory, which allowed Cartan to give a complete classification. Symmetric spaces commonly occur in differential geometry, representation theory and harmonic analysis.
In differential geometry, a projective connection is a type of Cartan connection on a differentiable manifold.
In conformal geometry, the ambient construction refers to a construction of Charles Fefferman and Robin Graham for which a conformal manifold of dimension n is realized (ambiently) as the boundary of a certain Poincaré manifold, or alternatively as the celestial sphere of a certain pseudo-Riemannian manifold.
In mathematics and theoretical physics, an invariant differential operator is a kind of mathematical map from some objects to an object of similar type. These objects are typically functions on , functions on a manifold, vector valued functions, vector fields, or, more generally, sections of a vector bundle.
Lie sphere geometry is a geometrical theory of planar or spatial geometry in which the fundamental concept is the circle or sphere. It was introduced by Sophus Lie in the nineteenth century. The main idea which leads to Lie sphere geometry is that lines should be regarded as circles of infinite radius and that points in the plane should be regarded as circles of zero radius.
Clifford analysis, using Clifford algebras named after William Kingdon Clifford, is the study of Dirac operators, and Dirac type operators in analysis and geometry, together with their applications. Examples of Dirac type operators include, but are not limited to, the Hodge–Dirac operator, on a Riemannian manifold, the Dirac operator in euclidean space and its inverse on and their conformal equivalents on the sphere, the Laplacian in euclidean n-space and the Atiyah–Singer–Dirac operator on a spin manifold, Rarita–Schwinger/Stein–Weiss type operators, conformal Laplacians, spinorial Laplacians and Dirac operators on SpinC manifolds, systems of Dirac operators, the Paneitz operator, Dirac operators on hyperbolic space, the hyperbolic Laplacian and Weinstein equations.
In differential geometry and the study of Lie groups, a parabolic geometry is a homogeneous space G/P which is the quotient of a semisimple Lie group G by a parabolic subgroup P. More generally, the curved analogs of a parabolic geometry in this sense is also called a parabolic geometry: any geometry that is modeled on such a space by means of a Cartan connection.
Conformal geometric algebra (CGA) is the geometric algebra constructed over the resultant space of a map from points in an n-dimensional base space Rp,q to null vectors in Rp+1,q+1. This allows operations on the base space, including reflections, rotations and translations to be represented using versors of the geometric algebra; and it is found that points, lines, planes, circles and spheres gain particularly natural and computationally amenable representations.