This is a list of

differential geometry Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilin ...

topics. See also glossary of differential and metric geometry and

list of Lie group topics This is a list of Lie group topics, by Wikipedia page. Examples ''See Table of Lie groups for a list'' *General linear group, special linear group ** SL2(R) ** SL2(C) *Unitary group, special unitary group **SU(2) ** SU(3) *Orthogonal group, speci ...

Differential geometry of curves and surfaces

Differential geometry of curves Differential geometry of curves is the branch of geometry that deals with smooth curves in the plane and the Euclidean space by methods of differential and integral calculus. Many specific curves have been thoroughly investigated using the ...

* List of curves topics *

Frenet–Serret formulas In differential geometry, the Frenet–Serret formulas describe the kinematic properties of a particle moving along a differentiable curve in three-dimensional Euclidean space \mathbb^, or the geometric properties of the curve itself irrespecti ...

* Curves in differential geometry *

Line element In geometry, the line element or length element can be informally thought of as a line segment associated with an infinitesimal displacement vector in a metric space. The length of the line element, which may be thought of as a differential arc l ...

Curvature In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a surface deviates from being a plane. For curves, the canon ...

Radius of curvature In differential geometry, the radius of curvature, , is the reciprocal of the curvature. For a curve, it equals the radius of the circular arc which best approximates the curve at that point. For surfaces, the radius of curvature is the radius o ...

Osculating circle In differential geometry of curves, the osculating circle of a sufficiently smooth plane curve at a given point ''p'' on the curve has been traditionally defined as the circle passing through ''p'' and a pair of additional points on the curve ...

Curve In mathematics, a curve (also called a curved line in older texts) is an object similar to a line, but that does not have to be straight. Intuitively, a curve may be thought of as the trace left by a moving point. This is the definition that ...

* Fenchel's theorem

Differential geometry of surfaces In mathematics, the differential geometry of surfaces deals with the differential geometry of smooth surfaces with various additional structures, most often, a Riemannian metric. Surfaces have been extensively studied from various perspectives ...

Theorema egregium Gauss's ''Theorema Egregium'' (Latin for "Remarkable Theorem") is a major result of differential geometry, proved by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1827, that concerns the curvature of surfaces. The theorem says that Gaussian curvature can be determi ...

Gauss–Bonnet theorem In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Gauss–Bonnet theorem (or Gauss–Bonnet formula) is a fundamental formula which links the curvature of a surface to its underlying topology. In the simplest application, the case of a tr ...

First fundamental form In differential geometry, the first fundamental form is the inner product on the tangent space of a surface in three-dimensional Euclidean space which is induced canonically from the dot product of . It permits the calculation of curvature and me ...

Second fundamental form In differential geometry, the second fundamental form (or shape tensor) is a quadratic form on the tangent plane of a smooth surface in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, usually denoted by \mathrm (read "two"). Together with the first fundamen ...

* Gauss–Codazzi–Mainardi equations *

Dupin indicatrix In differential geometry, the Dupin indicatrix is a method for characterising the local shape of a surface. Draw a plane parallel to the tangent plane and a small distance away from it. Consider the intersection of the surface with this plane. T ...

Asymptotic curve In the differential geometry of surfaces, an asymptotic curve is a curve always tangent to an asymptotic direction of the surface (where they exist). It is sometimes called an asymptotic line, although it need not be a line. Definitions An asympto ...

Principal curvatures In differential geometry, the two principal curvatures at a given point of a surface are the maximum and minimum values of the curvature as expressed by the eigenvalues of the shape operator at that point. They measure how the surface bends by d ...

Mean curvature In mathematics, the mean curvature H of a surface S is an ''extrinsic'' measure of curvature that comes from differential geometry and that locally describes the curvature of an embedded surface in some ambient space such as Euclidean space. The ...

Gauss curvature In differential geometry, the Gaussian curvature or Gauss curvature of a surface at a point is the product of the principal curvatures, and , at the given point: K = \kappa_1 \kappa_2. The Gaussian radius of curvature is the reciprocal of . ...

Elliptic point In differential geometry, the two principal curvatures at a given point of a surface are the maximum and minimum values of the curvature as expressed by the eigenvalues of the shape operator at that point. They measure how the surface bends by d ...

*Types of

surface A surface, as the term is most generally used, is the outermost or uppermost layer of a physical object or space. It is the portion or region of the object that can first be perceived by an observer using the senses of sight and touch, and is t ...

s **

Minimal surface In mathematics, a minimal surface is a surface that locally minimizes its area. This is equivalent to having zero mean curvature (see definitions below). The term "minimal surface" is used because these surfaces originally arose as surfaces tha ...

Ruled surface In geometry, a surface is ruled (also called a scroll) if through every point of there is a straight line that lies on . Examples include the plane, the lateral surface of a cylinder or cone, a conical surface with elliptical directrix, ...

** Conical surface **

Developable surface In mathematics, a developable surface (or torse: archaic) is a smooth surface with zero Gaussian curvature. That is, it is a surface that can be flattened onto a plane without distortion (i.e. it can be bent without stretching or compression ...

Nadirashvili surface In differential geometry, a Nadirashvili surface is an immersed complete bounded minimal surface in R3 with negative curvature. The first example of such a surface was constructed by in . This simultaneously answered a question of Hadamard abo ...

Foundations

Calculus on manifolds

''See also

multivariable calculus Multivariable calculus (also known as multivariate calculus) is the extension of calculus in one variable to calculus with functions of several variables: the differentiation and integration of functions involving several variables, rather ...

list of multivariable calculus topics This is a list of multivariable calculus topics. See also multivariable calculus, vector calculus, list of real analysis topics, list of calculus topics. *Closed and exact differential forms *Contact (mathematics) *Contour integral *Contour line ...

'' *

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 ...

Differentiable manifold In mathematics, a differentiable manifold (also differential manifold) is a type of manifold that is locally similar enough to a vector space to allow one to apply calculus. Any manifold can be described by a collection of charts (atlas). One m ...

Smooth manifold In mathematics, a differentiable manifold (also differential manifold) is a type of manifold that is locally similar enough to a vector space to allow one to apply calculus. Any manifold can be described by a collection of charts (atlas). One ma ...

Banach manifold In mathematics, a Banach manifold is a manifold modeled on Banach spaces. Thus it is a topological space in which each point has a neighbourhood homeomorphic to an open set in a Banach space (a more involved and formal definition is given below). B ...

** Fréchet manifold *

Tensor analysis In mathematics and physics, a tensor field assigns a tensor to each point of a mathematical space (typically a Euclidean space or manifold). Tensor fields are used in differential geometry, algebraic geometry, general relativity, in the analysis ...

Tangent vector In mathematics, a tangent vector is a vector that is tangent to a curve or surface at a given point. Tangent vectors are described in the differential geometry of curves in the context of curves in R''n''. More generally, tangent vectors are ele ...

Tangent space In mathematics, the tangent space of a manifold generalizes to higher dimensions the notion of '' tangent planes'' to surfaces in three dimensions and ''tangent lines'' to curves in two dimensions. In the context of physics the tangent space to a ...

Tangent bundle In differential geometry, the tangent bundle of a differentiable manifold M is a manifold TM which assembles all the tangent vectors in M . As a set, it is given by the disjoint unionThe disjoint union ensures that for any two points and of ...

Cotangent space In differential geometry, the cotangent space is a vector space associated with a point x on a smooth (or differentiable) manifold \mathcal M; one can define a cotangent space for every point on a smooth manifold. Typically, the cotangent space, T ...

Cotangent bundle In mathematics, especially differential geometry, the cotangent bundle of a smooth manifold is the vector bundle of all the cotangent spaces at every point in the manifold. It may be described also as the dual bundle to the tangent bundle. This m ...

Tensor In mathematics, a tensor is an algebraic object that describes a multilinear relationship between sets of algebraic objects related to a vector space. Tensors may map between different objects such as vectors, scalars, and even other tenso ...

Tensor bundle In mathematics, the tensor bundle of a manifold is the direct sum of all tensor products of the tangent bundle and the cotangent bundle of that manifold. To do calculus on the tensor bundle a connection is needed, except for the special case of the ...

** Vector field **

Tensor field In mathematics and physics, a tensor field assigns a tensor to each point of a mathematical space (typically a Euclidean space or manifold). Tensor fields are used in differential geometry, algebraic geometry, general relativity, in the analysis ...

Differential form In mathematics, differential forms provide a unified approach to define integrands over curves, surfaces, solids, and higher-dimensional manifolds. The modern notion of differential forms was pioneered by Élie Cartan. It has many applications, ...

Exterior derivative On a differentiable manifold, the exterior derivative extends the concept of the differential of a function to differential forms of higher degree. The exterior derivative was first described in its current form by Élie Cartan in 1899. The res ...

Lie derivative In differential geometry, the Lie derivative ( ), named after Sophus Lie by Władysław Ślebodziński, evaluates the change of a tensor field (including scalar functions, vector fields and one-forms), along the flow defined by another vector f ...

pullback (differential geometry) Suppose that is a smooth map between smooth manifolds ''M'' and ''N''. Then there is an associated linear map from the space of 1-forms on ''N'' (the linear space of sections of the cotangent bundle) to the space of 1-forms on ''M''. This linea ...

pushforward (differential) In differential geometry, pushforward is a linear approximation of smooth maps on tangent spaces. Suppose that is a smooth map between smooth manifolds; then the differential of ''φ, d\varphi_x,'' at a point ''x'' is, in some sense, the best ...

jet (mathematics) In mathematics, the jet is an operation that takes a differentiable function ''f'' and produces a polynomial, the truncated Taylor polynomial of ''f'', at each point of its domain. Although this is the definition of a jet, the theory of jets regard ...

Contact (mathematics) In mathematics, two functions have a contact of order ''k'' if, at a point ''P'', they have the same value and ''k'' equal derivatives. This is an equivalence relation, whose equivalence classes are generally called jets. The point of osculation ...

jet bundle In differential topology, the jet bundle is a certain construction that makes a new smooth fiber bundle out of a given smooth fiber bundle. It makes it possible to write differential equations on sections of a fiber bundle in an invariant form. J ...

Frobenius theorem (differential topology) In mathematics, Frobenius' theorem gives necessary and sufficient conditions for finding a maximal set of independent solutions of an overdetermined system of first-order homogeneous linear partial differential equations. In modern geometric terms ...

Integral curve In mathematics, an integral curve is a parametric curve that represents a specific solution to an ordinary differential equation or system of equations. Name Integral curves are known by various other names, depending on the nature and interpr ...

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 ...

Diffeomorphism In mathematics, a diffeomorphism is an isomorphism of smooth manifolds. It is an invertible function that maps one differentiable manifold to another such that both the function and its inverse are differentiable. Definition Given two ...

Large diffeomorphism In mathematics and theoretical physics, a large diffeomorphism is an equivalence class of diffeomorphisms under the equivalence relation where diffeomorphisms that can be continuously connected to each other are in the same equivalence class. For ...

Orientability In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space is ...

* characteristic class ** Chern class ** Pontrjagin class **

spin structure In differential geometry, a spin structure on an orientable Riemannian manifold allows one to define associated spinor bundles, giving rise to the notion of a spinor in differential geometry. Spin structures have wide applications to mathematical ...

differentiable map In mathematics, a differentiable function of one real variable is a function whose derivative exists at each point in its domain. In other words, the graph of a differentiable function has a non-vertical tangent line at each interior point in ...

** submersion ** immersion **

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 gi ...

***

Whitney embedding theorem In mathematics, particularly in differential topology, there are two Whitney embedding theorems, named after Hassler Whitney: *The strong Whitney embedding theorem states that any smooth real -dimensional manifold (required also to be Hausdorff ...

Critical value Critical value may refer to: *In differential topology, a critical value of a differentiable function between differentiable manifolds is the image (value of) ƒ(''x'') in ''N'' of a critical point ''x'' in ''M''. *In statistical hypothesis ...

** Sard's theorem **

Saddle point In mathematics, a saddle point or minimax point is a point on the surface of the graph of a function where the slopes (derivatives) in orthogonal directions are all zero (a critical point), but which is not a local extremum of the functio ...

Morse theory In mathematics, specifically in differential topology, Morse theory enables one to analyze the topology of a manifold by studying differentiable functions on that manifold. According to the basic insights of Marston Morse, a typical differentiab ...

Hairy ball theorem The hairy ball theorem of algebraic topology (sometimes called the hedgehog theorem in Europe) states that there is no nonvanishing continuous tangent vector field on even-dimensional ''n''-spheres. For the ordinary sphere, or 2‑sphere, if ...

Poincaré–Hopf theorem In mathematics, the Poincaré–Hopf theorem (also known as the Poincaré–Hopf index formula, Poincaré–Hopf index theorem, or Hopf index theorem) is an important theorem that is used in differential topology. It is named after Henri Poincaré ...

Stokes' theorem Stokes's theorem, also known as the Kelvin–Stokes theoremNagayoshi Iwahori, et al.:"Bi-Bun-Seki-Bun-Gaku" Sho-Ka-Bou(jp) 1983/12Written in Japanese)Atsuo Fujimoto;"Vector-Kai-Seki Gendai su-gaku rekucha zu. C(1)" :ja:培風館, Bai-Fu-Kan(j ...

De Rham cohomology In mathematics, de Rham cohomology (named after Georges de Rham) is a tool belonging both to algebraic topology and to differential topology, capable of expressing basic topological information about smooth manifolds in a form particularly adapt ...

Sphere eversion In differential topology, sphere eversion is the process of turning a sphere inside out in a three-dimensional space (the word '' eversion'' means "turning inside out"). Remarkably, it is possible to smoothly and continuously turn a sphere in ...

Distribution (differential geometry) In differential geometry, a discipline within mathematics, a distribution on a manifold M is an assignment x \mapsto \Delta_x \subseteq T_x M of vector subspaces satisfying certain properties. In the most common situations, a distribution is aske ...

integral curve In mathematics, an integral curve is a parametric curve that represents a specific solution to an ordinary differential equation or system of equations. Name Integral curves are known by various other names, depending on the nature and interpr ...

foliation In mathematics (differential geometry), a foliation is an equivalence relation on an ''n''-manifold, the equivalence classes being connected, injectively immersed submanifolds, all of the same dimension ''p'', modeled on the decomposition of ...

integrability conditions for differential systems In mathematics, certain systems of partial differential equations are usefully formulated, from the point of view of their underlying geometric and algebraic structure, in terms of a system of differential forms. The idea is to take advantage of the ...

Fiber bundles

Fiber bundle In mathematics, and particularly topology, a fiber bundle (or, in Commonwealth English: fibre bundle) is a space that is a product space, but may have a different topological structure. Specifically, the similarity between a space E and a ...

Principal bundle In mathematics, a principal bundle is a mathematical object that formalizes some of the essential features of the Cartesian product X \times G of a space X with a group G. In the same way as with the Cartesian product, a principal bundle P is equi ...

Frame bundle In mathematics, a frame bundle is a principal fiber bundle F(''E'') associated to any vector bundle ''E''. The fiber of F(''E'') over a point ''x'' is the set of all ordered bases, or ''frames'', for ''E'x''. The general linear group acts nat ...

** Hopf bundle *

Associated bundle In mathematics, the theory of fiber bundles with a structure group G (a topological group) allows an operation of creating an associated bundle, in which the typical fiber of a bundle changes from F_1 to F_2, which are both topological spaces with ...

Vector bundle In mathematics, a vector bundle is a topological construction that makes precise the idea of a family of vector spaces parameterized by another space X (for example X could be a topological space, a manifold, or an algebraic variety): to every p ...

Line bundle In mathematics, a line bundle expresses the concept of a line that varies from point to point of a space. For example, a curve in the plane having a tangent line at each point determines a varying line: the ''tangent bundle'' is a way of organising ...

Jet bundle In differential topology, the jet bundle is a certain construction that makes a new smooth fiber bundle out of a given smooth fiber bundle. It makes it possible to write differential equations on sections of a fiber bundle in an invariant form. J ...

Fundamental structures

Sheaf (mathematics) In mathematics, a sheaf is a tool for systematically tracking data (such as sets, abelian groups, rings) attached to the open sets of a topological space and defined locally with regard to them. For example, for each open set, the data could ...

Pseudogroup In mathematics, a pseudogroup is a set of diffeomorphisms between open sets of a space, satisfying group-like and sheaf-like properties. It is a generalisation of the concept of a group, originating however from the geometric approach of Sophus Lie ...

G-structure In differential geometry, a ''G''-structure on an ''n''-manifold ''M'', for a given structure group ''G'', is a principal ''G''-subbundle of the tangent frame bundle F''M'' (or GL(''M'')) of ''M''. The notion of ''G''-structures includes variou ...

synthetic differential geometry In mathematics, synthetic differential geometry is a formalization of the theory of differential geometry in the language of topos theory. There are several insights that allow for such a reformulation. The first is that most of the analytic dat ...

Riemannian geometry Riemannian geometry is the branch of differential geometry that studies Riemannian manifolds, smooth manifolds with a ''Riemannian metric'', i.e. with an inner product on the tangent space at each point that varies smoothly from point to point. ...

Fundamental notions

Metric tensor In the mathematical field of differential geometry, a metric tensor (or simply metric) is an additional structure on a manifold (such as a surface) that allows defining distances and angles, just as the inner product on a Euclidean space allows ...

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 space ''T ...

Pseudo-Riemannian manifold In differential geometry, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold, also called a semi-Riemannian manifold, is a differentiable manifold with a metric tensor that is everywhere nondegenerate. This is a generalization of a Riemannian manifold in which the r ...

Levi-Civita connection In Riemannian or pseudo Riemannian geometry (in particular the Lorentzian geometry of general relativity), the Levi-Civita connection is the unique affine connection on the tangent bundle of a manifold (i.e. affine connection) that preserves th ...

Non-Euclidean geometry

Non-Euclidean geometry In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean ge ...

Elliptic geometry Elliptic geometry is an example of a geometry in which Euclid's parallel postulate does not hold. Instead, as in spherical geometry, there are no parallel lines since any two lines must intersect. However, unlike in spherical geometry, two lines a ...

Spherical geometry 300px, A sphere with a spherical triangle on it. Spherical geometry is the geometry of the two-dimensional surface of a sphere. In this context the word "sphere" refers only to the 2-dimensional surface and other terms like "ball" or "solid sp ...

Sphere-world The idea of a sphere-world was constructed by Henri Poincaré who, while pursuing his argument for conventionalism (see philosophy of space and time), offered a thought experiment about a sphere with strange properties. The concept Poincaré ask ...

Angle excess Spherical trigonometry is the branch of spherical geometry that deals with the metrical relationships between the sides and angles of spherical triangles, traditionally expressed using trigonometric functions. On the sphere, geodesics are grea ...

hyperbolic geometry In mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai–Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry. The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced with: :For any given line ''R'' and point ''P'' ...

hyperbolic space In mathematics, hyperbolic space of dimension n is the unique simply connected, n-dimensional Riemannian manifold of constant sectional curvature equal to -1. It is homogeneous, and satisfies the stronger property of being a symmetric space. The ...

hyperboloid model In geometry, the hyperboloid model, also known as the Minkowski model after Hermann Minkowski, is a model of ''n''-dimensional hyperbolic geometry in which points are represented by points on the forward sheet ''S''+ of a two-sheeted hyperboloid ...

Poincaré disc model Poincaré is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Henri Poincaré (1854–1912), French physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science * Henriette Poincaré (1858-1943), wife of Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré * Lu ...

Poincaré half-plane model In non-Euclidean geometry, the Poincaré half-plane model is the upper half-plane, denoted below as H = \, together with a metric, the Poincaré metric, that makes it a model of two-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. Equivalently the Poincaré h ...

Poincaré metric In mathematics, the Poincaré metric, named after Henri Poincaré, is the metric tensor describing a two-dimensional surface of constant negative curvature. It is the natural metric commonly used in a variety of calculations in hyperbolic geometry ...

Angle of parallelism In hyperbolic geometry, the angle of parallelism \Pi(a) , is the angle at the non-right angle vertex of a right hyperbolic triangle having two asymptotic parallel sides. The angle depends on the segment length ''a'' between the right angle and ...

Geodesic In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...

* Prime geodesic *

Geodesic flow In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...

Exponential map (Lie theory) In the theory of Lie groups, the exponential map is a map from the Lie algebra \mathfrak g of a Lie group G to the group, which allows one to recapture the local group structure from the Lie algebra. The existence of the exponential map is one of ...

Exponential map (Riemannian geometry) In Riemannian geometry, an exponential map is a map from a subset of a tangent space T''p'M'' of a Riemannian manifold (or pseudo-Riemannian manifold) ''M'' to ''M'' itself. The (pseudo) Riemannian metric determines a canonical affine connect ...

Injectivity radius This is a glossary of some terms used in Riemannian geometry and metric geometry — it doesn't cover the terminology of differential topology. The following articles may also be useful; they either contain specialised vocabulary or provid ...

Geodesic deviation equation In general relativity, if two objects are set in motion along two initially parallel trajectories, the presence of a tidal gravitational force will cause the trajectories to bend towards or away from each other, producing a relative acceleration be ...

Jacobi field In Riemannian geometry, a Jacobi field is a vector field along a geodesic \gamma in a Riemannian manifold describing the difference between the geodesic and an "infinitesimally close" geodesic. In other words, the Jacobi fields along a geodesic for ...

Symmetric spaces (and related topics)

Riemannian symmetric space In mathematics, a symmetric space is a Riemannian manifold (or more generally, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold) whose group of symmetries contains an inversion symmetry about every point. This can be studied with the tools of Riemannian geometry, ...

** Margulis lemma *

Space form Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

** Constant curvature ** taut submanifold *

Uniformization theorem In mathematics, the uniformization theorem says that every simply connected Riemann surface is conformally equivalent to one of three Riemann surfaces: the open unit disk, the complex plane, or the Riemann sphere. The theorem is a generalization ...

Myers theorem Myers's theorem, also known as the Bonnet–Myers theorem, is a celebrated, fundamental theorem in the mathematical field of Riemannian geometry. It was discovered by Sumner Byron Myers in 1941. It asserts the following: In the special case o ...

** Gromov's compactness theorem

Riemannian submanifold A Riemannian submanifold ''N'' of a Riemannian manifold ''M'' is a submanifold of ''M'' equipped with the Riemannian metric inherited from ''M''. The image of an isometric immersion In mathematics, an embedding (or imbedding) is one instance of s ...
s

Gauss–Codazzi equations In Riemannian geometry and pseudo-Riemannian geometry, the Gauss–Codazzi equations (also called the Gauss–Codazzi–Weingarten-Mainardi equations or Gauss–Peterson–Codazzi Formulas) are fundamental formulas which link together the induced ...

Darboux frame In the differential geometry of surfaces, a Darboux frame is a natural moving frame constructed on a surface. It is the analog of the Frenet–Serret frame as applied to surface geometry. A Darboux frame exists at any non-umbilic point of a ...

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 Euclidean ...

Induced metric In mathematics and theoretical physics, the induced metric is the metric tensor defined on a submanifold that is induced from the metric tensor on a manifold into which the submanifold is embedded, through the pullback. It may be determined using t ...

Nash embedding theorem The Nash embedding theorems (or imbedding theorems), named after John Forbes Nash Jr., state that every Riemannian manifold can be isometrically embedded into some Euclidean space. Isometric means preserving the length of every path. For instan ...

minimal surface In mathematics, a minimal surface is a surface that locally minimizes its area. This is equivalent to having zero mean curvature (see definitions below). The term "minimal surface" is used because these surfaces originally arose as surfaces tha ...

Helicoid The helicoid, also known as helical surface, after the plane and the catenoid, is the third minimal surface to be known. Description It was described by Euler in 1774 and by Jean Baptiste Meusnier in 1776. Its name derives from its similari ...

Catenoid In geometry, a catenoid is a type of surface, arising by rotating a catenary curve about an axis (a surface of revolution). It is a minimal surface, meaning that it occupies the least area when bounded by a closed space. It was formally describe ...

** Costa's minimal surface *

Hsiang–Lawson's conjecture In mathematics, Lawson's conjecture states that the Clifford torus is the only minimally embedded torus in the 3-sphere ''S''3. The conjecture was featured by the Australian Mathematical Society Gazette as part of the ''Millennium Problems'' series ...

Curvature of Riemannian manifolds

Theorema Egregium Gauss's ''Theorema Egregium'' (Latin for "Remarkable Theorem") is a major result of differential geometry, proved by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1827, that concerns the curvature of surfaces. The theorem says that Gaussian curvature can be determi ...

** Chern–Gauss–Bonnet theorem ** Chern–Weil homomorphism *

Gauss map In differential geometry, the Gauss map (named after Carl F. Gauss) maps a surface in Euclidean space R3 to the unit sphere ''S''2. Namely, given a surface ''X'' lying in R3, the Gauss map is a continuous map ''N'': ''X'' → ''S''2 such that '' ...

Curvature form In differential geometry, the curvature form describes curvature of a connection on a principal bundle. The Riemann curvature tensor in Riemannian geometry can be considered as a special case. Definition Let ''G'' be a Lie group with Lie algebra ...

Riemann curvature tensor In the mathematical field of differential geometry, the Riemann curvature tensor or Riemann–Christoffel tensor (after Bernhard Riemann and Elwin Bruno Christoffel) is the most common way used to express the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. ...

Geodesic curvature In Riemannian geometry, the geodesic curvature k_g of a curve \gamma measures how far the curve is from being a geodesic. For example, for 1D curves on a 2D surface embedded in 3D space, it is the curvature of the curve projected onto the surface's ...

Scalar curvature In the mathematical field of Riemannian geometry, the scalar curvature (or the Ricci scalar) is a measure of the curvature of a Riemannian manifold. To each point on a Riemannian manifold, it assigns a single real number determined by the geometry ...

Sectional curvature In Riemannian geometry, the sectional curvature is one of the ways to describe the curvature of Riemannian manifolds. The sectional curvature ''K''(σ''p'') depends on a two-dimensional linear subspace σ''p'' of the tangent space at a poi ...

Ricci curvature In differential geometry, the Ricci curvature tensor, named after Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro, is a geometric object which is determined by a choice of Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian metric on a manifold. It can be considered, broadly, as a measure ...

, Ricci flat *

Ricci decomposition In the mathematical fields of Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian geometry, the Ricci decomposition is a way of breaking up the Riemann curvature tensor of a Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian manifold into pieces with special algebraic properties. Thi ...

** Schouten tensor ** Weyl curvature *

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 analo ...

Einstein manifold In differential geometry and mathematical physics, an Einstein manifold is a Riemannian or pseudo-Riemannian differentiable manifold whose Ricci tensor is proportional to the metric. They are named after Albert Einstein because this condition i ...

Holonomy 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 geomet ...

Theorems in Riemannian geometry

Hopf–Rinow theorem Hopf–Rinow theorem is a set of statements about the geodesic completeness of Riemannian manifolds. It is named after Heinz Hopf and his student Willi Rinow, who published it in 1931. Stefan Cohn-Vossen extended part of the Hopf–Rinow theorem ...

Cartan–Hadamard theorem In mathematics, the Cartan–Hadamard theorem is a statement in Riemannian geometry concerning the structure of complete Riemannian manifolds of non-positive sectional curvature. The theorem states that the universal cover of such a manifold is dif ...

* Rauch comparison theorem * Morse index theorem * Synge theorem * Weinstein theorem * Toponogov theorem *

Sphere theorem In Riemannian geometry, the sphere theorem, also known as the quarter-pinched sphere theorem, strongly restricts the topology of manifolds admitting metrics with a particular curvature bound. The precise statement of the theorem is as follows. ...

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 ...

* Yamabe problem

Isometry In mathematics, an isometry (or congruence, or congruent transformation) is a distance-preserving transformation between metric spaces, usually assumed to be bijective. The word isometry is derived from the Ancient Greek: ἴσος ''isos'' me ...

Killing vector field In mathematics, a Killing vector field (often called a Killing field), named after Wilhelm Killing, is a vector field on a Riemannian manifold (or pseudo-Riemannian manifold) that preserves the metric. Killing fields are the infinitesimal gener ...

Laplace–Beltrami operator In differential geometry, the Laplace–Beltrami operator is a generalization of the Laplace operator to functions defined on submanifolds in Euclidean space and, even more generally, on Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. It is named af ...

Hodge star operator In mathematics, the Hodge star operator or Hodge star is a linear map defined on the exterior algebra of a finite-dimensional oriented vector space endowed with a nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form. Applying the operator to an element of the a ...

Weitzenböck identity In mathematics, in particular in differential geometry, mathematical physics, and representation theory a Weitzenböck identity, named after Roland Weitzenböck, expresses a relationship between two second-order elliptic operators on a manifold ...

Laplacian operators in differential geometry In differential geometry there are a number of second-order, linear, elliptic differential operators bearing the name Laplacian. This article provides an overview of some of them. Connection Laplacian The connection Laplacian, also known as the ...

Formulas and other tools

List of coordinate charts This article attempts to conveniently list articles on some of the most useful coordinate charts in some of the most useful examples of Riemannian manifolds. The notion of a coordinate chart is fundamental to various notions of a ''manifold'' whic ...

* List of formulas in Riemannian geometry *

Christoffel symbols In mathematics and physics, the Christoffel symbols are an array of numbers describing a metric connection. The metric connection is a specialization of the affine connection to surfaces or other manifolds endowed with a metric, allowing distanc ...

Related structures

Intrinsic metric In the mathematical study of metric spaces, one can consider the arclength of paths in the space. If two points are at a given distance from each other, it is natural to expect that one should be able to get from the first point to the second alon ...

* Sub-Riemannian manifold * Finsler geometry *

General relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. G ...

* G2 manifold *

Information geometry Information geometry is an interdisciplinary field that applies the techniques of differential geometry to study probability theory and statistics. It studies statistical manifolds, which are Riemannian manifolds whose points correspond to p ...

Fisher information metric In information geometry, the Fisher information metric is a particular Riemannian metric which can be defined on a smooth statistical manifold, ''i.e.'', a smooth manifold whose points are probability measures defined on a common probability spac ...

Lie groups

Connections

{{main article, Connection (mathematics) *

covariant derivative In mathematics, the covariant derivative is a way of specifying a derivative along tangent vectors of a manifold. Alternatively, the covariant derivative is a way of introducing and working with a connection on a manifold by means of a differen ...

** exterior covariant derivative *

parallel transport In geometry, parallel transport (or parallel translation) is a way of transporting geometrical data along smooth curves in a manifold. If the manifold is equipped with an affine connection (a covariant derivative or connection on the tangent bu ...

** Development (differential geometry) * connection form *

Cartan connection 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 ...

affine connection 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 i ...

conformal connection 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 :O+(n+1 ...

projective connection In differential geometry, a projective connection is a type of Cartan connection on a differentiable manifold. The structure of a projective connection is modeled on the geometry of projective space, rather than the affine space corresponding to a ...

** method of moving frames **

Cartan's equivalence method In mathematics, Cartan's equivalence method is a technique in differential geometry for determining whether two geometrical structures are the same up to a diffeomorphism. For example, if ''M'' and ''N'' are two Riemannian manifolds with metrics ' ...

** Vierbein,

tetrad Tetrad ('group of 4') or tetrade may refer to: * Tetrad (area), an area 2 km x 2 km square * Tetrad (astronomy), four total lunar eclipses within two years * Tetrad (chromosomal formation) * Tetrad (general relativity), or frame field ** Tetra ...

** Cartan connection applications **

Einstein–Cartan theory In theoretical physics, the Einstein–Cartan theory, also known as the Einstein–Cartan–Sciama–Kibble theory, is a classical theory of gravitation similar to general relativity. The theory was first proposed by Élie Cartan in 1922. Einstein ...

* connection (vector bundle) *

connection (principal bundle) In mathematics, and especially differential geometry and gauge theory, a connection is a device that defines a notion of parallel transport on the bundle; that is, a way to "connect" or identify fibers over nearby points. A principal ''G''-connecti ...

Ehresmann connection In differential geometry, an Ehresmann connection (after the French mathematician Charles Ehresmann who first formalized this concept) is a version of the notion of a connection, which makes sense on any smooth fiber bundle. In particular, it does ...

curvature In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a surface deviates from being a plane. For curves, the canon ...

curvature form In differential geometry, the curvature form describes curvature of a connection on a principal bundle. The Riemann curvature tensor in Riemannian geometry can be considered as a special case. Definition Let ''G'' be a Lie group with Lie algebra ...

holonomy 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 geomet ...

, local holonomy ** Chern–Weil homomorphism ** Curvature vector **

** Curvature tensor ** Cocurvature *

torsion (differential geometry) In differential geometry, the notion of torsion is a manner of characterizing a twist or screw of a moving frame around a curve. The torsion of a curve, as it appears in the Frenet–Serret formulas, for instance, quantifies the twist of a curve ...

Complex manifolds In differential geometry and complex geometry, a complex manifold is a manifold with an atlas of charts to the open unit disc in \mathbb^n, such that the transition maps are holomorphic. The term complex manifold is variously used to mean a ...

Riemann surface In mathematics, particularly in complex analysis, a Riemann surface is a connected one-dimensional complex manifold. These surfaces were first studied by and are named after Bernhard Riemann. Riemann surfaces can be thought of as deformed versi ...

Complex projective space In mathematics, complex projective space is the projective space with respect to the field of complex numbers. By analogy, whereas the points of a real projective space label the lines through the origin of a real Euclidean space, the points of ...

Kähler manifold In mathematics and especially differential geometry, a Kähler manifold is a manifold with three mutually compatible structures: a complex structure, a Riemannian structure, and a symplectic structure. The concept was first studied by Jan Arnold ...

* Dolbeault operator *

CR manifold In mathematics, a CR manifold, or Cauchy–Riemann manifold, is a differentiable manifold together with a geometric structure modeled on that of a real hypersurface in a complex vector space, or more generally modeled on an edge of a wedge. Formal ...

Stein manifold In mathematics, in the theory of several complex variables and complex manifolds, a Stein manifold is a complex submanifold of the vector space of ''n'' complex dimensions. They were introduced by and named after . A Stein space is similar to a Stei ...

Almost complex structure In mathematics, an almost complex manifold is a smooth manifold equipped with a smooth linear complex structure on each tangent space. Every complex manifold is an almost complex manifold, but there are almost complex manifolds that are not complex ...

* Hermitian manifold * Newlander–Nirenberg theorem * Generalized complex manifold *

Calabi–Yau manifold In algebraic geometry, a Calabi–Yau manifold, also known as a Calabi–Yau space, is a particular type of manifold which has properties, such as Ricci flatness, yielding applications in theoretical physics. Particularly in superstring ...

Hyperkähler manifold In differential geometry, a hyperkähler manifold is a Riemannian manifold (M, g) endowed with three integrable almost complex structures I, J, K that are Kähler with respect to the Riemannian metric g and satisfy the quaternionic relations I ...

K3 surface In mathematics, a complex analytic K3 surface is a compact connected complex manifold of dimension 2 with trivial canonical bundle and irregularity zero. An (algebraic) K3 surface over any field means a smooth proper geometrically connected a ...

* hypercomplex manifold * Quaternion-Kähler manifold

Symplectic geometry Symplectic geometry is a branch of differential geometry and differential topology that studies symplectic manifolds; that is, differentiable manifolds equipped with a closed, nondegenerate 2-form. Symplectic geometry has its origins in the Ham ...

Symplectic topology Symplectic geometry is a branch of differential geometry and differential topology that studies symplectic manifolds; that is, differentiable manifolds equipped with a closed, nondegenerate 2-form. Symplectic geometry has its origins in the H ...

* Symplectic space *

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 sympl ...

* Symplectic structure *

Symplectomorphism In mathematics, a symplectomorphism or symplectic map is an isomorphism in the category of symplectic manifolds. In classical mechanics, a symplectomorphism represents a transformation of phase space that is volume-preserving and preserves the sym ...

Contact structure 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 ma ...

* Contact geometry *

Hamiltonian system A Hamiltonian system is a dynamical system governed by Hamilton's equations. In physics, this dynamical system describes the evolution of a physical system such as a planetary system or an electron in an electromagnetic field. These systems can b ...

* Sasakian manifold *

Poisson manifold In differential geometry, a Poisson structure on a smooth manifold M is a Lie bracket \ (called a Poisson bracket in this special case) on the algebra (M) of smooth functions on M , subject to the Leibniz rule : \ = \h + g \ . Equivalen ...

Conformal geometry In mathematics, conformal geometry is the study of the set of angle-preserving ( conformal) transformations on a space. In a real two dimensional space, conformal geometry is precisely the geometry of Riemann surfaces. In space higher than two d ...

Möbius transformation In geometry and complex analysis, a Möbius transformation of the complex plane is a rational function of the form f(z) = \frac of one complex variable ''z''; here the coefficients ''a'', ''b'', ''c'', ''d'' are complex numbers satisfying ''ad' ...

Conformal map In mathematics, a conformal map is a function that locally preserves angles, but not necessarily lengths. More formally, let U and V be open subsets of \mathbb^n. A function f:U\to V is called conformal (or angle-preserving) at a point u_0\i ...

* tractor bundle * Weyl curvature * Weyl–Schouten theorem * ambient construction *

Willmore energy In differential geometry, the Willmore energy is a quantitative measure of how much a given surface deviates from a round sphere. Mathematically, the Willmore energy of a smooth closed surface embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space is def ...

* Willmore flow

Index theory Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

* Atiyah–Singer index theorem *

de Rham cohomology In mathematics, de Rham cohomology (named after Georges de Rham) is a tool belonging both to algebraic topology and to differential topology, capable of expressing basic topological information about smooth manifolds in a form particularly adapt ...

Dolbeault cohomology In mathematics, in particular in algebraic geometry and differential geometry, Dolbeault cohomology (named after Pierre Dolbeault) is an analog of de Rham cohomology for complex manifolds. Let ''M'' be a complex manifold. Then the Dolbeault cohom ...

* elliptic complex *

pseudodifferential operator In mathematical analysis a pseudo-differential operator is an extension of the concept of differential operator. Pseudo-differential operators are used extensively in the theory of partial differential equations and quantum field theory, e.g. in m ...

Homogeneous spaces

Klein geometry In mathematics, a Klein geometry is a type of geometry motivated by Felix Klein in his influential Erlangen program. More specifically, it is a homogeneous space ''X'' together with a transitive action on ''X'' by a Lie group ''G'', which acts ...

Erlangen programme 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 na ...

symmetric space In mathematics, a symmetric space is a Riemannian manifold (or more generally, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold) whose group of symmetries contains an inversion symmetry about every point. This can be studied with the tools of Riemannian geometry, ...

space form Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

Maurer–Cartan form In mathematics, the Maurer–Cartan form for a Lie group is a distinguished differential one-form on that carries the basic infinitesimal information about the structure of . It was much used by Élie Cartan as a basic ingredient of his meth ...

*Examples **

Gauss–Bolyai–Lobachevsky space In mathematics, hyperbolic geometry (also called Lobachevskian geometry or Bolyai–Lobachevskian geometry) is a non-Euclidean geometry. The parallel postulate of Euclidean geometry is replaced with: :For any given line ''R'' and point ''P'' ...

Grassmannian In mathematics, the Grassmannian is a space that parameterizes all -dimensional linear subspaces of the -dimensional vector space . For example, the Grassmannian is the space of lines through the origin in , so it is the same as the projective ...

Real projective space In mathematics, real projective space, denoted or is the topological space of lines passing through the origin 0 in It is a compact, smooth manifold of dimension , and is a special case of a Grassmannian space. Basic properties Construction ...

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 s ...

Stiefel manifold In mathematics, the Stiefel manifold V_k(\R^n) is the set of all orthonormal ''k''-frames in \R^n. That is, it is the set of ordered orthonormal ''k''-tuples of vectors in \R^n. It is named after Swiss mathematician Eduard Stiefel. Likewise one ca ...

Upper half-plane In mathematics, the upper half-plane, \,\mathcal\,, is the set of points in the Cartesian plane with > 0. Complex plane Mathematicians sometimes identify the Cartesian plane with the complex plane, and then the upper half-plane corresponds t ...

Sphere A sphere () is a geometrical object that is a three-dimensional analogue to a two-dimensional circle. A sphere is the set of points that are all at the same distance from a given point in three-dimensional space.. That given point is the ...

Systolic geometry In mathematics, systolic geometry is the study of systolic invariants of manifolds and polyhedra, as initially conceived by Charles Loewner and developed by Mikhail Gromov, Michael Freedman, Peter Sarnak, Mikhail Katz, Larry Guth, and others ...

* Loewner's torus inequality * Pu's inequality * Gromov's inequality for complex projective space * Wirtinger inequality (2-forms) * Gromov's systolic inequality for essential manifolds * Essential manifold *

Filling radius In Riemannian geometry, the filling radius of a Riemannian manifold ''X'' is a metric invariant of ''X''. It was originally introduced in 1983 by Mikhail Gromov, who used it to prove his systolic inequality for essential manifolds, vastly general ...

Filling area conjecture In differential geometry, Mikhail Gromov's filling area conjecture asserts that the hemisphere has minimum area among the orientable surfaces that fill a closed curve of given length without introducing shortcuts between its points. Definitions ...

Bolza surface In mathematics, the Bolza surface, alternatively, complex algebraic Bolza curve (introduced by ), is a compact Riemann surface of genus 2 with the highest possible order of the conformal automorphism group in this genus, namely GL_2(3) of order 4 ...

* First Hurwitz triplet *

Hermite constant In mathematics, the Hermite constant, named after Charles Hermite, determines how short an element of a lattice in Euclidean space can be. The constant ''γn'' for integers ''n'' > 0 is defined as follows. For a lattice ''L'' in Euclidean space ...

* Systoles of surfaces * Systolic freedom *

Systolic category The systole (or systolic category) is a numerical invariant of a closed manifold ''M'', introduced by Mikhail Katz and Yuli Rudyak in 2006, by analogy with the Lusternik–Schnirelmann category. The invariant is defined in terms of the systol ...

Other

Envelope (mathematics) In geometry, an envelope of a planar family of curves is a curve that is tangent to each member of the family at some point, and these points of tangency together form the whole envelope. Classically, a point on the envelope can be thought of a ...

Bäcklund transform In mathematics, Bäcklund transforms or Bäcklund transformations (named after the Swedish mathematician Albert Victor Bäcklund) relate partial differential equations and their solutions. They are an important tool in soliton theory and integrabl ...

Differential geometry Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilin ...