Reeb vector field

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In mathematics, the Reeb vector field , named after the French mathematician Georges Reeb, is a notion that appears in various domains of contact geometry including:

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Differential geometry Branch of mathematics dealing with functions and geometric structures on differentiable manifolds

Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds, using the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilinear algebra. The field has its origins in the study of spherical geometry as far back as antiquity, as it relates to astronomy and the geodesy of the Earth, and later in the study of hyperbolic geometry by Lobachevsky. The simplest examples of smooth spaces are the plane and space curves and surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, and the study of these shapes formed the basis for development of modern differential geometry during the 18th century and the 19th century.

In differential geometry, a subject of mathematics, a symplectic manifold is a smooth manifold, , equipped with a closed nondegenerate differential 2-form , called the symplectic form. The study of symplectic manifolds is called symplectic geometry or symplectic topology. Symplectic manifolds arise naturally in abstract formulations of classical mechanics and analytical mechanics as the cotangent bundles of manifolds. For example, in the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics, which provides one of the major motivations for the field, the set of all possible configurations of a system is modeled as a manifold, and this manifold's cotangent bundle describes the phase space of the system.

Contact geometry

In mathematics, contact geometry is the study of a geometric structure on smooth manifolds given by a hyperplane distribution in the tangent bundle satisfying a condition called 'complete non-integrability'. Equivalently, such a distribution may be given as the kernel of a differential one-form, and the non-integrability condition translates into a maximal non-degeneracy condition on the form. These conditions are opposite to two equivalent conditions for 'complete integrability' of a hyperplane distribution, i.e. that it be tangent to a codimension one foliation on the manifold, whose equivalence is the content of the Frobenius theorem.

In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the exterior covariant derivative is an extension of the notion of exterior derivative to the setting of a differentiable principal bundle or vector bundle with a connection.

In differential geometry, a Poisson structure on a smooth manifold is a Lie bracket on the algebra of smooth functions on , subject to the Leibniz rule

In mathematics, a sub-Riemannian manifold is a certain type of generalization of a Riemannian manifold. Roughly speaking, to measure distances in a sub-Riemannian manifold, you are allowed to go only along curves tangent to so-called horizontal subspaces.

Differentiable manifold Manifold upon which it is possible to perform calculus

In mathematics, a differentiable manifold is a type of manifold that is locally similar enough to a vector space to allow one to do calculus. Any manifold can be described by a collection of charts, also known as an atlas. One may then apply ideas from calculus while working within the individual charts, since each chart lies within a vector space to which the usual rules of calculus apply. If the charts are suitably compatible, then computations done in one chart are valid in any other differentiable chart.

In mathematics, specifically in symplectic topology and algebraic geometry, Gromov–Witten (GW) invariants are rational numbers that, in certain situations, count pseudoholomorphic curves meeting prescribed conditions in a given symplectic manifold. The GW invariants may be packaged as a homology or cohomology class in an appropriate space, or as the deformed cup product of quantum cohomology. These invariants have been used to distinguish symplectic manifolds that were previously indistinguishable. They also play a crucial role in closed type IIA string theory. They are named after Mikhail Gromov and Edward Witten.

In mathematics, Floer homology is a tool for studying symplectic geometry and low-dimensional topology. Floer homology is a novel invariant that arises as an infinite-dimensional analogue of finite-dimensional Morse homology. Andreas Floer introduced the first version of Floer homology, now called Lagrangian Floer homology, in his proof of the Arnold conjecture in symplectic geometry. Floer also developed a closely related theory for Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold. A third construction, also due to Floer, associates homology groups to closed three-dimensional manifolds using the Yang–Mills functional. These constructions and their descendants play a fundamental role in current investigations into the topology of symplectic and contact manifolds as well as (smooth) three- and four-dimensional manifolds.

In mathematics, specifically in symplectic geometry, the momentum map is a tool associated with a Hamiltonian action of a Lie group on a symplectic manifold, used to construct conserved quantities for the action. The momentum map generalizes the classical notions of linear and angular momentum. It is an essential ingredient in various constructions of symplectic manifolds, including symplectic (Marsden–Weinstein) quotients, discussed below, and symplectic cuts and sums.

In mathematics, the Weinstein conjecture refers to a general existence problem for periodic orbits of Hamiltonian or Reeb vector flows. More specifically, the conjecture claims that on a compact contact manifold, its Reeb vector field should carry at least one periodic orbit.

In mathematics, the Gauss–Manin connection is a connection on a certain vector bundle over a base space S of a family of algebraic varieties . The fibers of the vector bundle are the de Rham cohomology groups of the fibers of the family. It was introduced by Yuri Manin (1958) for curves S and by Alexander Grothendieck (1966) in higher dimensions.

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 mapping also arises as the Euler-Lagrange equation of a functional called the Dirichlet energy. As such, the theory of harmonic maps contains both the theory of unit-speed geodesics in Riemannian geometry and the theory of harmonic functions.

Clifford Taubes American mathematician

Clifford Henry Taubes is the William Petschek Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University and works in gauge field theory, differential geometry, and low-dimensional topology. His brother is the journalist Gary Taubes.

In Riemannian geometry and pseudo-Riemannian geometry, the Gauss–Codazzi equations are fundamental formulas which link together the induced metric and second fundamental form of a submanifold of a Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian manifold.

In mathematics, more precisely in symplectic geometry, a hypersurface of a symplectic manifold is said to be of contact type if there is 1-form such that and is a contact manifold, where is the natural inclusion. The terminology was first coined by Alan Weinstein.

In mathematics, specifically Riemannian geometry, Synge's theorem is a classical result relating the curvature of a Riemannian manifold to its topology. It is named for John Lighton Synge, who proved it in 1936.

In mathematics, Salomon Bochner proved in 1946 that any Killing vector field of a compact Riemannian manifold with negative Ricci curvature must be zero. Consequently the isometry group of the manifold must be finite.

In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a Kenmotsu manifold is an almost-contact manifold endowed with a certain kind of Riemannian metric.

In the mathematical field of differential geometry, an almost-contact structure is a certain kind of geometric structure on a smooth manifold. Such structures were introduced by Shigeo Sasaki in 1960.

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