We prove that many aspects of the differential geometry of embedded Riemannian manifolds can be formulated in terms of multi-linear algebraic structures on the space of smooth functions. In particular, we find algebraic expressions for Weingarten’s formula, the Ricci curvature, and the Codazzi-Mainardi equations. For matrix analogues of embedded surfaces, we define discrete curvatures and Euler characteristics, and a non-commutative GaussBonnet theorem is shown to follow. We derive simple expressions for the discrete Gauss curvature in terms of matrices representing the embedding coordinates, and explicit examples are provided. Furthermore, we illustrate the fact that techniques from differential geometry can carry over to matrix analogues by proving that a bound on the discrete Gauss curvature implies a bound on the eigenvalues of the discrete Laplace operator.

Let M be a compact Hamiltonian T−space, with finite fixed point set MT . An equivariant class is determined by its restriction to MT , and to each fixed point p ∈ MT and generic component of the moment map, there corresponds a canonical class τp. For a special class of Hamiltonian T−spaces, the value τp,q of τp at a fixed point q can be determined through an iterated interpolation procedure, and we obtained a formula for τp,q as a sum over ascending chains from p to q. In general the number of such chains is huge, and the main result of this paper is a procedure to reduce the number of relevant chains, through a systematic degeneration of the interpolation direction. The resulting formula for τp,q resembles, via the localization formula, an integral over a space of chains, and we prove that, for complex Grassmannians, τp,q can indeed be expressed as the integral of an equivariant form over a smooth Schubert variety.

This article studies the geometry of moduli spaces of G2-manifolds, associative cycles, coassociative cycles and deformed Donaldson–Thomas bundles. We introduce natural symmetric cubic tensors and differential forms on these moduli spaces. They correspond to Yukawa couplings and correlation functions in M-theory. We expect that the Yukawa coupling characterizes (co-)associative fibrations on these manifolds. We discuss the Fourier transformation along such fibrations and the analog of the Strominger–Yau–Zaslow mirror conjecture for G2-manifolds. We also discuss similar structures and transformations for Spin(7)- manifolds.

We consider the zeros on the boundary @­ of a Neumann eigen- function '¸j of a real analytic plane domain ­. We prove that the number of its boundary zeros is O(¸j) where ¡¢'¸j = ¸2j '¸j . We also prove that the number of boundary critical points of either a Neumann or Dirichlet eigenfunction is O(¸j ). It follows that the number of nodal lines of '¸j (components of the nodal set) which touch the boundary is of order ¸j . This upper bound is of the same order of magnitude as the length of the total nodal line, but is the square root of the Courant bound on the number of nodal components in the interior. More generally, the results are proved for piecewise analytic domains.

This paper extends our earlier results to higher dimensions using a different approach, based on the rigidity of complex structures on certain domains. We prove a “low energy” result in all dimensions, in the sense that if normalized energy in a large ball is small enough, then the normalized energy in any interior ball must also be small.