Transformations of Manifolds and Application to Differential Equations

Description

The interaction between differential geometry and partial differential equations has been studied since the last century. This relationship is based on the fact that most of the local properties of manifolds are expressed in terms of partial differential equations. The correspondence between certain classes of manifolds and the associated differential equations can be useful in two ways. From our knowledge about the geometry of the manifolds we can obtain solutions to the equations. In particular it is important to study transformations of manifolds which preserve a geometric property, since the analytic interpretation of these transformations will provide mappings between the corresponding differential equations. Conversely, we can obtain geometric properties of the manifolds or even prove the non existence of certain geometric structures on manifolds from our knowledge of the differential equation. This kind of interaction between differential geometry and differential equations is the general theme of the book. The author focuses on the role played by differential geometry in the study of differential equations, combining the geometric and analytic aspects of the theory, not only in the classical examples but also in results obtained since 1980, on integrable systems with an arbitrary number of independent variables. The book will be of interest to graduate students, researchers and mathematicians working in differential geometry, differential equations and mathematical physics.