Shing-Tung YauShing-Tung Yau (jaʊ; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician and the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. In April 2022, Yau announced retirement from Harvard to become Chair Professor of mathematics at Tsinghua University. Yau was born in Shantou, China, moved to Hong Kong at a young age, and to the United States in 1969. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1982, in recognition of his contributions to partial differential equations, the Calabi conjecture, the positive energy theorem, and the Monge–Ampère equation.
Serre dualityIn algebraic geometry, a branch of mathematics, Serre duality is a duality for the coherent sheaf cohomology of algebraic varieties, proved by Jean-Pierre Serre. The basic version applies to vector bundles on a smooth projective variety, but Alexander Grothendieck found wide generalizations, for example to singular varieties. On an n-dimensional variety, the theorem says that a cohomology group is the dual space of another one, . Serre duality is the analog for coherent sheaf cohomology of Poincaré duality in topology, with the canonical line bundle replacing the orientation sheaf.
W. V. D. HodgeSir William Vallance Douglas Hodge (hɒdʒ; 17 June 1903 – 7 July 1975) was a British mathematician, specifically a geometer. His discovery of far-reaching topological relations between algebraic geometry and differential geometry—an area now called Hodge theory and pertaining more generally to Kähler manifolds—has been a major influence on subsequent work in geometry.
Hodge theoryIn 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 cohomology class has a canonical representative, a differential form that vanishes under the Laplacian operator of the metric. Such forms are called harmonic. The theory was developed by Hodge in the 1930s to study algebraic geometry, and it built on the work of Georges de Rham on de Rham cohomology.
Complex manifoldIn differential geometry and complex geometry, a complex manifold is a manifold with an atlas of charts to the open unit disc in , such that the transition maps are holomorphic. The term complex manifold is variously used to mean a complex manifold in the sense above (which can be specified as an integrable complex manifold), and an almost complex manifold. Since holomorphic functions are much more rigid than smooth functions, the theories of smooth and complex manifolds have very different flavors: compact complex manifolds are much closer to algebraic varieties than to differentiable manifolds.
Chern classIn mathematics, in particular in algebraic topology, differential geometry and algebraic geometry, the Chern classes are characteristic classes associated with complex vector bundles. They have since become fundamental concepts in many branches of mathematics and physics, such as string theory, Chern–Simons theory, knot theory, Gromov-Witten invariants. Chern classes were introduced by . Chern classes are characteristic classes. They are topological invariants associated with vector bundles on a smooth manifold.
Complex geometryIn mathematics, complex geometry is the study of geometric structures and constructions arising out of, or described by, the complex numbers. In particular, complex geometry is concerned with the study of spaces such as complex manifolds and complex algebraic varieties, functions of several complex variables, and holomorphic constructions such as holomorphic vector bundles and coherent sheaves. Application of transcendental methods to algebraic geometry falls in this category, together with more geometric aspects of complex analysis.
Symplectic geometrySymplectic 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 Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics where the phase space of certain classical systems takes on the structure of a symplectic manifold. The term "symplectic", introduced by Weyl, is a calque of "complex"; previously, the "symplectic group" had been called the "line complex group".
Generalized flag varietyIn mathematics, a generalized flag variety (or simply flag variety) is a homogeneous space whose points are flags in a finite-dimensional vector space V over a field F. When F is the real or complex numbers, a generalized flag variety is a smooth or complex manifold, called a real or complex flag manifold. Flag varieties are naturally projective varieties. Flag varieties can be defined in various degrees of generality. A prototype is the variety of complete flags in a vector space V over a field F, which is a flag variety for the special linear group over F.
Coherent sheafIn mathematics, especially in algebraic geometry and the theory of complex manifolds, coherent sheaves are a class of sheaves closely linked to the geometric properties of the underlying space. The definition of coherent sheaves is made with reference to a sheaf of rings that codifies this geometric information. Coherent sheaves can be seen as a generalization of vector bundles. Unlike vector bundles, they form an , and so they are closed under operations such as taking , , and cokernels.
Ricci-flat manifoldIn the mathematical field of differential geometry, Ricci-flatness is a condition on the curvature of a (pseudo-)Riemannian manifold. Ricci-flat manifolds are a special kind of Einstein manifold. In theoretical physics, Ricci-flat Lorentzian manifolds are of fundamental interest, as they are the solutions of Einstein's field equations in vacuum with vanishing cosmological constant. In Lorentzian geometry, a number of Ricci-flat metrics are known from works of Karl Schwarzschild, Roy Kerr, and Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat.
Scalar curvatureIn 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 of the metric near that point. It is defined by a complicated explicit formula in terms of partial derivatives of the metric components, although it is also characterized by the volume of infinitesimally small geodesic balls.
Ricci curvatureIn 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 of the degree to which the geometry of a given metric tensor differs locally from that of ordinary Euclidean space or pseudo-Euclidean space. The Ricci tensor can be characterized by measurement of how a shape is deformed as one moves along geodesics in the space.
Ample line bundleIn mathematics, a distinctive feature of algebraic geometry is that some line bundles on a projective variety can be considered "positive", while others are "negative" (or a mixture of the two). The most important notion of positivity is that of an ample line bundle, although there are several related classes of line bundles. Roughly speaking, positivity properties of a line bundle are related to having many global sections. Understanding the ample line bundles on a given variety X amounts to understanding the different ways of mapping X into projective space.
Complex differential formIn mathematics, a complex differential form is a differential form on a manifold (usually a complex manifold) which is permitted to have complex coefficients. Complex forms have broad applications in differential geometry. On complex manifolds, they are fundamental and serve as the basis for much of algebraic geometry, Kähler geometry, and Hodge theory. Over non-complex manifolds, they also play a role in the study of almost complex structures, the theory of spinors, and CR structures.
Hermitian manifoldIn mathematics, and more specifically in differential geometry, a Hermitian manifold is the complex analogue of a Riemannian manifold. More precisely, a Hermitian manifold is a complex manifold with a smoothly varying Hermitian inner product on each (holomorphic) tangent space. One can also define a Hermitian manifold as a real manifold with a Riemannian metric that preserves a complex structure. A complex structure is essentially an almost complex structure with an integrability condition, and this condition yields a unitary structure (U(n) structure) on the manifold.
K3 surfaceIn mathematics, a complex analytic K3 surface is a compact connected complex manifold of dimension 2 with а trivial canonical bundle and irregularity zero. An (algebraic) K3 surface over any field means a smooth proper geometrically connected algebraic surface that satisfies the same conditions. In the Enriques–Kodaira classification of surfaces, K3 surfaces form one of the four classes of minimal surfaces of Kodaira dimension zero. A simple example is the Fermat quartic surface in complex projective 3-space.
Ddbar lemmaIn complex geometry, the lemma (pronounced ddbar lemma) is a mathematical lemma about the de Rham cohomology class of a complex differential form. The -lemma is a result of Hodge theory and the Kähler identities on a compact Kähler manifold. Sometimes it is also known as the -lemma, due to the use of a related operator , with the relation between the two operators being and so .
Coherent sheaf cohomologyIn mathematics, especially in algebraic geometry and the theory of complex manifolds, coherent sheaf cohomology is a technique for producing functions with specified properties. Many geometric questions can be formulated as questions about the existence of sections of line bundles or of more general coherent sheaves; such sections can be viewed as generalized functions. Cohomology provides computable tools for producing sections, or explaining why they do not exist. It also provides invariants to distinguish one algebraic variety from another.
Dolbeault cohomologyIn 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 cohomology groups depend on a pair of integers p and q and are realized as a subquotient of the space of complex differential forms of degree (p,q). Let Ωp,q be the vector bundle of complex differential forms of degree (p,q).
