ebook9783319110264d4325

Description

This is a short tract on the essentials of differential and symplectic geometry together with a basic introduction to several applications of this rich framework: analytical mechanics, the calculus of variations, conjugate points & Morse index, and other physical topics. A central feature is the systematic utilization of Lagrangian submanifolds and their Maslov-H√∂rmander generating functions. Following this line of thought, first introduced by Wlodemierz Tulczyjew, geometric solutions of Hamilton-Jacobi equations, Hamiltonian vector fields and canonical transformations are described by suitable Lagrangian submanifolds belonging to distinct well-defined symplectic structures. This unified point of view has been particularly fruitful in symplectic topology, which is the modern Hamiltonian environment for the calculus of variations, yielding sharp sufficient existence conditions. This line of investigation was initiated by Claude Viterbo in 1992; here, some primary consequences of this theory are exposed in Chapter 8: aspects of Poincar√©’s last geometric theorem and the Arnol’d conjecture are introduced. In Chapter 7 elements of the global asymptotic treatment of the highly oscillating integrals for the Schr√∂dinger equation are discussed: as is well known, this¬†eventually¬†leads to the theory of Fourier Integral Operators. This short handbook is directed toward graduate students in Mathematics and Physics and to all those who¬†desire a quick introduction¬†to¬†these beautiful subjects.