Manifolds with analytic corners

Abstract

Manifolds with boundary and with corners form categories ${\bf Man}\subset{\bf Man^b}\subset{\bf Man^c}$. A manifold with corners $X$ has two notions of tangent bundle: the tangent bundle $TX$, and the b-tangent bundle ${}^bTX$. The usual definition of smooth structure uses $TX$, as $f:X\to\mathbb{R}$ is defined to be smooth if $\nabla^kf$ exists as a continuous section of $\bigotimes^kT^*X$ for all $k\ge 0$. We define 'manifolds with analytic corners', or 'manifolds with a-corners', with a different smooth structure, in which roughly $f:X\to\mathbb{R}$ is smooth if ${}^b\nabla^kf$ exists as a continuous section of $\bigotimes^k({}^bT^*X)$ for all $k\ge 0$. These are different from manifolds with corners even when $X=[0,\infty)$, for instance $x^α:[0,\infty)\to\mathbb{R}$ is smooth for all real $α\ge 0$ when $[0,\infty)$ has a-corners. Manifolds with a-boundary and with a-corners form categories ${\bf Man}\subset{\bf Man^{ab}}\subset{\bf Man^{ac}}$, with well behaved differential geometry. Partial differential equations on manifolds with boundary may have boundary conditions of two kinds: (i) 'at finite distance', e.g. Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, or (ii) 'at infinity', prescribing the asymptotic behaviour of the solution. We argue that manifolds with corners should be used for (i), and with a-corners for (ii). We discuss many applications of manifolds with a-corners in boundary problems of type (ii), and to singular p.d.e. problems involving 'bubbling', 'neck-stretching' and 'gluing'.