Oberwolfach Seminar: Recent Developments in Conformal Differential Geometry

Date:
November 18th - November 24th, 2007
Organizers:
Helga Baum, Berlin
Andreas Juhl, Uppsala
Programme:
Of central interest in conformal differential geometry are conformal invariants, for example, conformally covariant differential operators, conformal curvature tensors, conformal holonomy groups or groups of conformal diffeomorphisms. Conformally covariant operators arise often in physics. For example, the classical Maxwell equation on 4-dimensional Minkowski space is conformally covariant. Further conformally covariant operators are the Dirac operator, the Yamabe operator, the Paneitz operator and the twistor operator. In recent years the AdS/CFTcorrespondence in quantum gravity motivated new studies in conformal differerential geometry. The aim of the seminar is to present some of these ideas and developments.

The seminar is organized like a summer school and adressed to graduate students and post doc's. There will be 2 lecture series, one on Q-curvature, its origin and relevance in geometry, spectral theory and physics and one on holonomy theory of conformal manifolds and its relation to Einstein metrics and to conformally invariant twistor equations. In the two courses we intend to cover the following subjects:

Andreas Juhl: Q-curvature

Helga Baum: Holonomy theory of conformal structures

Prerequisites:
Basic aquaintance with Riemannian Geometry, fibre bundle methods, Lie groups and Lie algebras.
Deadline for applications:
October 1, 2007

The seminars take place at the Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach. The number of participants is restricted to 24. The Institute covers accommodation and food. Travel expenses cannot be reimbursed. Applications including

should be sent as hard copy or by e-mail (.ps or .pdf file) to:

Prof. Dr. Gert-Martin Greuel
Universität Kaiserslautern
Fachbereich Mathematik
Erwin Schrödingerstr.
67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
.


Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach   updated: September 24th, 2007