arXiv research

Canonical twistor fibrations lead to Pfaffian systems by means of their superhorizontal distribution. The aim of this note is to identify explicitly the Pfaffian systems of five or less variables that arise in this way in terms of the classification given by A.Awane and M.Goze.

Study absolute equivalence for Pfaffian systems, applying to control systems.

Let $\mathcal{S}$ be an integrable Pfaffian system. If it is invariant under a transversally free infinitesimal action of a finite dimensional real Lie algebra $g$ and consequently invariant under the local action of a Lie group $G$, we show that the vertical variational cohomology of $\mathcal{S}$ is equal to the Lie …

We give a description of Nurowski's conformal structure for some examples of bracket-generating rank 2 distributions in dimension 5, aka $(2,3,5)$-distributions, namely the An-Nurowski circle twistor distribution for pairs of surfaces of constant Gauss curvature rolling without slipping or twisting over each other. In …

Elliptic systems are characterized by Darboux integrability.

Clarifies relation between Pfaffian fibrations and relative algebroids.

This paper proves all Pfaffian varieties are area-minimizing except hypersurfaces.

We discuss a recurrent geometrical method, due to Élie Cartan and von Weber ([1],[11]) enabling us to determine, step by step, the maximal integral manifolds of a not necessarily integrable nor regular Pfaffian system. The dimensions of such integral manifolds can, of course, vary from point to point but more so can va…

We prove that a Pfaffian system with coefficients in the critical space $L^2_\mathrm{loc}$ on a simply connected open subset of $\mathbb{R}^2$ has a non-trivial solution in $W^{1,2}_\mathrm{loc}$ if the coefficients are antisymmetric and satisfy a compatibility condition. As an application of this result, we show that …

The paper characterizes Pfaffian embeddings from 2,3,5-manifolds to 7-dimensional isotropic spaces.

The present paper is a contribution to categorial index theory. Its main result is the calculation of the Pfaffian line bundle of a certain family of real Dirac operators as an object in the category of line bundles. Furthermore, it is shown how string structures give rise to trivialisations of that Pfaffian.

Classifies homogeneous Pfaffian forms on graded manifolds.

On any odd-dimensional oriented Riemannian manifold we define a volume form, which we call the odd Pfaffian, through a certain invariant polynomial with integral coefficients in the curvature tensor. We prove an intrinsic Chern-Gauss-Bonnet formula for incomplete edge singularities in terms of the odd Pfaffian on the f…

Study of Morita equivalences in Lie groupoids and their symmetries.

We explain how to encode the essential data of a PDE on jet bundle into a more intrinsic object called Pfaffian fibration. We provide motivations to study this new notion and show how prolongations, integrability and linearisations of PDEs generalise to this setting.

This work improves algorithm design for structured Pfaffian settings.

Study cohomology of GL₂n(Z) and graph complexes using Pfaffian forms.

Starting from suitable tableaux over finite dimensional Lie algebras, we provide a scheme for producing involutive linear Pfaffian systems related to various classes of submanifolds in homogeneous spaces which constitute integrable systems. These include isothermic surfaces, Willmore surfaces, and other classical solit…

Formula for transgressions on polyhedral manifolds, linking face volumes and outer angles.

In this paper we present a far-reaching generalization of E. Vessiot's analysis of the Darboux integrable partial differential equations in one dependent and two independent variables. Our approach provides new insights into this classical method, uncovers the fundamental geometric invariants of Darboux integrable syst…

This paper is a survey of the subject of variations of Hodge structure (VHS) considered as exterior differential systems (EDS). We review developments over the last twenty-six years, with an emphasis on some key examples. In the penultimate section we present some new results on the characteristic cohomology of a homog…

The paper finds a contact form on SL(2p) for p > 1.

We give necessary and sufficient geometric conditions for a distribution (or a Pfaffian system) to be locally equivalent to the canonical contact system on Jn(R,Rm), the space of n-jets of maps from R into Rm. We study the geometry of that class of systems, in particular, the existence of corank one involutive subdistr…

Study extends GNN VC dimension bounds to Pfaffian activation functions.

New geometric insights reveal the persistence distribution in spin systems.

Extends method for solving certain hydrodynamic systems.

Develops a graphical calculus for stable curvature invariants.

On an oriented Riemannian manifold, the Gauss-Bonnet-Chern formula asserts that the Pfaffian of the metric represents, in de Rham cohomology, the Euler class of the tangent bundle. Hence, if the underlying manifold is compact, the integral of the Pfaffian is a topological invariant; namely, the Euler characteristic of …

The classical Matrix-Tree Theorem allows one to list the spanning trees of a graph by monomials in the expansion of the determinant of a certain matrix. We prove that in the case of three-graphs (that is, hypergraphs whose edges have exactly three vertices) the spanning trees are generated by the Pfaffian of a suitably…

The tame flows are ``nice'' flows on ``nice'' spaces. The nice (tame) sets are the pfaffian sets introduced by Khovanski, and a flow $Φ: \mathbb{R}\times X\to X$ on pfaffian set $X$ is tame if the graph of $Φ$ is a pfaffian subset of $\mathbb{R}\times X\times X$. Any compact tame set admits plenty tame flows. We prove …

The paper classifies symplectic forms on R^4 and determines invariants under symplectomorphisms.

As the loop space of a Riemannian manifold is infinite-dimensional, it is a non-trivial problem to make sense of the "top degree component" of a differential form on it. In this paper, we show that a formula from finite dimensions generalizes to assign a sensible "top degree component" to certain composite forms, obtai…

Partition functions for dimers on closed oriented surfaces are known to be alternating sums of Pfaffians of Kasteleyn matrices. In this paper, we obtain the formula for the coefficients in terms of discrete spin structures.

This exposition gives an introduction to the theory of surfaces in Laguerre geometry and surveys some results, mostly obtained by the authors, about three important classes of surfaces in Laguerre geometry, namely L-isothermic, L-minimal, and generalized L-minimal surfaces. The quadric model of Lie sphere geometry is a…

We provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the derived type of a vector field distribution $\Cal V$ in order that it be locally equivalent to a partial prolongation of the contact distribution $\Cal C^{(1)}_q$, on the first order jet bundle of maps from $\Bbb R$ to $\Bbb R^q$, $q\geq 1$. This result fully genera…

We prove that if $n$ is even, $(M,g)$ is a compact $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold whose Pfaffian form is a positive multiple of the volume form, and $y\in C^{1,α}(M;\mathbb{R}^{n+1})$ is an isometric immersion with $n/(n+1)< α\leq 1$, then $y(M)$ is a surface of bounded extrinsic curvature. This is proved by showi…

New conformally invariant forms help identify Einstein metrics.

Let $\CV$ be a vector field distribution on manifold $M$. We give an efficient algorithm for the construction of local coordinates on $M$ such that $\CV$ may be locally expressed as some partial prolongation of the contact distribution $\Cal C^{(1)}_q$, on the first order jet bundle of maps from $\Bbb R$ to $\Bbb R^q$,…

In this paper, we prove the following two results: First, we study a class of conformally invariant operators $P$ and their related conformally invariant curvatures $Q$ on even-dimensional Riemannian manifolds. When the manifold is locally conformally flat(LCF) and compact without boundary, $Q$-curvature is naturally r…

Motivated by our attempt to recast Cartan's work on Lie pseudogroups in a more global and modern language, we are brought back to the question of understanding the linearization of multiplicative forms on groupoids and the corresponding integrability problem. From this point of view, the novelty of this paper is that w…

We clarify the conformal invariance of the Pontrjagin forms by giving them a manifestly conformally invariant construction; they are shown to be the Pontrjagin forms of the conformally invariant tractor connection. The Q-curvature is intimately related to the Pfaffian. Working on even-dimensional manifolds, we show how…

The aim of this paper is to give a formulation of the dynamics of nonlinear RLC circuits as a geometric Birkhoffian system and to discuss in this context the concepts of regularity, conservativeness, dissipativeness. An RLC circuit, with no assumptions placed on its topology, will be described by a family of Birkhoffia…

In this paper we present some bounds of Hausdorff measures of objects definable in o-minimal structures: sets, fibers of maps, inverse images of curves of maps, etc. Moreover, we also give some explicit bounds for semi-algebraic or semi-Pfaffian cases, which depend only on the combinatoric data representing the objects…

We present a modern formulation of Élie Cartan's structure theory for Lie pseudogroups and prove a reduction theorem that clarifies the role of Cartan's systatic system. The paper is divided into three parts. In part one, using notions coming from the theory of Lie groupoids and algebroids, we introduce the framework o…

We derive the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet Theorem for manifolds with smooth non-degenerate boundary in the pseudo-Riemannian context from the corresponding result in the Riemannian setting by examining the Euler-Lagrange equations associated to the Pfaffian of a complex "metric" on the tangent space and then applying analytic c…

We start discussing basic properties of Lie groupoids and Lie pseudo-groups in view of applying these techniques to the analysis of Jordan-Hölder resolutions and the subsequent integration of partial differential equations which is the summit of Lie and Cartan's work. Next, we discuss the integration problem for system…

We examine the local super trace asymptotics for the de Rham complex defined by an arbitrary super connection on the exterior algebra. We show, in contrast to the situation in which the connection in question is the Levi-Civita connection, that these invariants are generically non-zero in positive degree and that the c…

Let R be an o-minimal expansion of the real field. We introduce a class of Hausdorff limits, the T-infinity limits over R, that do not in general fall under the scope of Marker and Steinhorn's definability-of-types theorem. We prove that if R admits analytic cell decomposition, then every T-infinity limit over R is def…