Riemannian Manifolds

This book focuses on the study of the volume of vector fields on Riemannian manifolds. Providing a thorough overview of research on vector fields defining minimal submanifolds, and on the existence and characterization of volume minimizers, it includes proofs of the most significant results obtained since the subject’s introduction in 1986. Aiming to inspire further research, it also highlights a selection of intriguing open problems, and exhibits some previously unpublished results. The presentation is direct and deviates substantially from the usual approaches found in the literature, requiring a significant revision of definitions, statements, and proofs.

Differential geometry techniques have very useful and important applications in partial differential equations and quantum mechanics. This work presents a purely geometric treatment of problems in physics involving quantum harmonic oscillators, quartic oscillators, minimal surfaces, and Schrödinger's, Einstein's and Newton's equations.