Contact Geometry and Non-Linear Differential Equations

Methods from contact and symplectic geometry can be used to solve highly non-trivial nonlinear partial and ordinary differential equations without resorting to approximate numerical methods or algebraic computing software. This book explains how it's done. It combines the clarity and accessibility of an advanced textbook with the completeness of an encyclopedia. The basic ideas that Lie and Cartan developed at the end of the nineteenth century to transform solving a differential equation into a problem in geometry or algebra are here reworked in a novel and modern way. Differential equations are considered as a part of contact and symplectic geometry, so that all the machinery of Hodge-deRham calculus can be applied. In this way a wide class of equations can be tackled, including quasi-linear equations and Monge-Ampere equations (which play an important role in modern theoretical physics and meteorology).

Author: Alexei Kushner, Valentin Lychagin, Vladimir Rubtsov
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 02/01/2007
Pages: 520
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.89lbs
Size: 9.52h x 6.46w x 1.19d
ISBN: 9780521824767

About the Author
Kushner, Alexei: - Alexei Kushner is a Professor and Dean of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and a Senior Researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences.Lychagin, Valentin: - Valentin Lychagin is a Professor at the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics, Tromsø University, and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow.Rubtsov, Vladimir: - Vladimir Rubtsov is a Professor at the Département de Mathématiques, Angers University, and a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow.