Related papers: Differential equations and conformal structures
We study the Lie point symmetries of a general class of partial differential equations (PDE) of second order. An equation from this class naturally defines a second-order symmetric tensor (metric). In the case the PDE is linear on the first…
Conformal geodesics form an invariantly defined family of unparametrized curves in a conformal manifold generalizing unparametrized geodesics/paths of projective connections. The equation describing them is of third order, and it was an…
We show that for n>2 the following equivalence problems are essentially the same: the equivalence problem for Lagrangians of order n with one dependent and one independent variable considered up to a contact transformation, a multiplication…
Conformal invariance plays a significant role in many areas of Physics, such as conformal field theory, renormalization theory, turbulence, general relativity. Naturally, it also plays an important role in geometry: theory of Riemannian…
We use methods from exterior differential systems (EDS) to develop a geometric theory of scalar, first-order Lagrangian functionals and their associated Euler-Lagrange PDEs, subject to contact transformations. The first chapter contains an…
Conformal geodesics are solutions to a system of third order of equations, which makes a Lagrangian formulation problematic. We show how enlarging the class of allowed variations leads to a variational formulation for this system with a…
We show that every 2nd order ODE defines a 4-parameter family of projective connections on its 2-dimensional solution space. In a special case of ODEs, for which a certain point transformation invariant vanishes, we find that this family of…
The non-existence of non-trivial conformally symmetric manifolds in the three-dimensional Riemannian setting is shown. In Lorentzian signature, a complete local classification is obtained. Furthermore, the isometry classes are examined.
This article describes an entirely algebraic construction for developing conformal geometries, which provide models for, among others, the Euclidean, spherical and hyperbolic geometries. On one hand, their relationship is usually shown…
We study invariant properties of $5$-dimensional para-CR structures whose Levi form is degenerate in precisely one direction and which are $2$-nondegenerate. We realize that two, out of three, primary (basic) para-CR invariants of such…
In his 1910 "Five Variables" paper, Cartan solved the equivalence problem for the geometry of $(2, 3, 5)$ distributions and in doing so demonstrated an intimate link between this geometry and the exceptional simple Lie groups of type…
We derive a canonical form for skew-symmetric endomorphisms $F$ in Lorentzian vector spaces of dimension three and four which covers all non-trivial cases at once. We analyze its invariance group, as well as the connection of this canonical…
We present three large classes of examples of conformal structures for which the equations for the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric to be Ricci-flat are linear PDEs, which we solve explicitly. These explicit solutions enable us to discuss…
We construct a natural conformally invariant one-form of weight $-2k$ on any $2k$-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold which is closely related to the Pfaffian of the Weyl tensor. On oriented manifolds, we also construct natural…
Riemannian geometry in four dimensions naturally leads to an SL(3) connection that annihilates a basis for self-dual two-forms. Einstein's equations may be written in terms of an SO(3) connection, with SO(3) chosen as an appropriate…
We study the relations between the projective and the almost conformally symplectic structures on a smooth even dimensional manifold. We describe these relations by a single almost conformally symplectic connection with totally trace--free…
We continue our study of the semi-classical (large central charge) expansion of the toroidal one-point conformal block in the context of the 2d/4d correspondence. We demonstrate that the Seiberg-Witten curve and (epsilon1-deformed)…
We determine the submaximal dimensions of the spaces of almost Einstein scales and normal conformal Killing fields for connected conformal manifolds. The results depend on the signature and dimension $n$ of the conformally nonflat conformal…
We show that the local equivalence problem for second-order ordinary differential equations under point transformations is completely characterized by differential invariants of order at most 10 and that this upper bound is sharp. We also…
In the first part of this series of papers we developed the invariant differentiation with respect to a Cartan connection, we described this procedure in the terms of the underlying principal connections, and we discussed applications of…