arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C. Robin Graham.
Consider hard balls in a bounded rotating drum. If there is no gravitation then there is no Fermi acceleration, i.e., the energy of the balls remains bounded forever. If there is gravitation, Fermi acceleration may arise. A number of explicit formulas for the system without gravitation are given. Some of these are based on an explicit realization, which we derive, of the well-known microcanonical ensemble measure.
We prove local injectivity near a boundary point for the geodesic X-ray transform for an asymptotically hyperbolic metric even mod $O(\rho^5)$ in dimensions three and higher.
We construct non-trapping asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds with boundary conjugate points but no interior conjugate points.
We derive a formula of Chern-Gauss-Bonnet type for the Euler characteristic of a four dimensional manifold-with-boundary in terms of the geometry of the Loewner-Nirenberg singular Yamabe metric in a prescribed conformal class. The formula involves the renormalized volume and a boundary integral. It is shown that if the boundary is umbilic, then the sum of the renormalized volume and the boundary integral is a conformal invariant. Analogous results are proved for asymptotically hyperbolic metrics in dimension four for which the second elementary symmetric function of the eigenvalues of the Schouten tensor is constant. Extensions and generalizations of these results are discussed. Finally, a general result is proved identifying the infinitesimal anomaly of the renormalized volume of an asymptotically hyperbolic metric in terms of its renormalized volume coefficients, and used to outline alternate proofs of the conformal invariance of the renormalized volume plus boundary integral.
We consider the boundary rigidity problem for asymptotically hyperbolic manifolds. We show injectivity of the X-ray transform in several cases and consider the non-linear inverse problem which consists of recovering a metric from boundary measurements for the geodesic flow.
A conformally invariant generalization of the Willmore energy for compact immersed submanifolds of even dimension in a Riemannian manifold is derived and studied. The energy arises as the coefficient of the log term in the renormalized area expansion of a minimal submanifold in a Poincare-Einstein space with prescribed boundary at infinity. Its first variation is identified as the obstruction to smoothness of the minimal submanifold. The energy is explicitly identified for the case of submanifolds of dimension four. Variational properties of this four-dimensional energy are studied in detail when the background is a Euclidean space or a sphere, including identifications of critical embeddings, questions of boundedness above and below for various topologies, and second variation.
This paper carries out a renormalization of the volume of the Loewner-Nirenberg singular Yamabe metric in a given conformal class on a compact manifold-with-boundary. This generalizes the usual volume renormalization for Poincare-Einstein metrics. The coefficient of the log term in the volume expansion defines a conformally invariant energy generalizing the Willmore energy of a surface whose variational derivative with respect to variations of the boundary hypersurface is a multiple of the obstruction to smoothness of the singular Yamabe metric itself. The existence of such an energy answers a question raised by Gover and Waldron.
This paper studies the relation between two notions of holonomy on a conformal manifold. The first is the conformal holonomy, defined to be the holonomy of the normal tractor connection. The second is the holonomy of the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric of the conformal manifold. It is shown that the infinitesimal conformal holonomy and the infinitesimal ambient holonomy always agree up to the order that the ambient metric is defined.
We describe the asymptotic behavior of minimal area submanifolds in product spacetimes of an asymptotically hyperbolic space times a compact internal manifold. In particular, we find that unlike the case of a minimal area submanifold just in an asymptotically hyperbolic space, the internal part of the boundary submanifold is constrained to be itself a minimal area submanifold. For applications to holography, this tells us what are the allowed "flavor branes" that can be added to a holographic field theory. We also give a compact geometric expression for the spectrum of operator dimensions associated with the slipping modes of the submanifold in the internal space. We illustrate our results with several examples, including some that haven't appeared in the literature before.
New properties are derived of renormalized volume functionals, which arise as coefficients in the asymptotic expansion of the volume of an asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein (AHE) manifold. A formula is given for the renormalized volume of an even-dimensional AHE manifold in terms of an arbitrary totally geodesic compactification. The second variation of renormalized volume functionals under conformal change is identified, and is used to show that Einstein metrics of nonzero scalar curvature are local extrema.
A normal form for edge metrics is derived under the necessary conditions that the metric be normalized and exact. The normal forms for such an edge metric are shown to be in 1-1 correspondence with representative metrics for a reduced conformal infinity on the boundary. The normal form is constructed via solution of a singular eikonal equation at infinity. The eikonal equation is solved by proving existence and uniqueness of smooth solutions of a class of characteristic nonlinear first-order initial value problems. This is carried out by constructing a characteristic version of a Hamiltonian flow-out in the first jet bundle of the solution.
Direct proofs are given of Juhl's formulae for GJMS operators and Q-curvatures starting from the original construction of GJMS.
The realization of tractor bundles as associated bundles in conformal geometry is studied. It is shown that different natural choices of principal bundle with normal Cartan connection corresponding to a given conformal manifold can give rise to topologically distinct associated tractor bundles for the same inducing representation. Consequences for homogeneous models and conformal holonomy are described. A careful presentation is made of background material concerning standard tractor bundles and equivalence between parabolic geometries and underlying structures.
The holonomy of the ambient metrics of Nurowski's conformal structures associated to generic real-analytic 2-plane fields on 5-manifolds is investigated. It is shown that the holonomy is always contained in the split real form G_2 of the exceptional Lie group, and is equal to G_2 for an open dense set of 2-plane fields given by explicit conditions. In particular, this gives an infinite-dimensional family of metrics of holonomy equal to split G_2. These results generalize work of Leistner-Nurowski. The inclusion of the holonomy in G_2 is established by proving an ambient extension theorem for parallel tractors for conformal structures in general signature and dimension, which is expected to be of independent interest. Parallel extension beyond the critical order in even dimensions is considered in certain cases.
The behavior under conformal change of the renormalized volume coefficients associated to a pseudo-Riemannian metric is investigated. It is shown that they define second order fully nonlinear operators in the conformal factor whose algebraic structure is elucidated via the introduction of "extended obstruction tensors". These together with the Schouten tensor constitute building blocks for the coefficients in the ambient metric expansion. The renormalized volume coefficients have recently been considered by Chang-Fang motivated by comparison with the elementary symmetric functions of the eigenvalues of the Schouten tensor.
This paper provides details of the construction, properties and some applications of the ambient metric associated to a conformal class of metrics on a smooth manifold. Existence and uniqueness of formal expansions defining such metrics are considered. Equivalence with the expansions of associated Poincare metrics is established. Definitions and properties of conformal curvature tensors defined by ambient metrics together with formulation and proof of a jet isomorphism theorem with application to the characterization of scalar conformal invariants are given.
A new derivation is given of Branson's factorization formula for the conformally invariant operator on the sphere whose principal part is the k-th power of the scalar Laplacian. The derivation deduces Branson's formula from knowledge of the corresponding conformally invariant operator on Euclidean space (the k-th power of the Euclidean Laplacian) via conjugation by the stereographic projection mapping.
Jet isomorphism theorems for conformal geometry are discussed. A new proof of the jet isomorphism theorem for odd-dimensional conformal geometry is outlined, using an ambient realization of the conformal deformation complex. An infinite order ambient lift for conformal densities in the case in which harmonic extension is obstructed is described. A jet isomorphism theorem for even dimensional conformal geometry is formulated using the inhomogeneous ambient metrics recently introduced by the author and K. Hirachi.