Cited by 160Advanced Differential Geometry ResearchGeometry and complex manifoldsGeometric Analysis and Curvature Flows

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 133 of the 143 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 5 of the 94 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

The geometry of G-structures

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Chern, S. S.·1966·Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society

Abstract

CHERN 1. Introduction.Differential geometry studies differentiate manifolds and geometric objects or structures on them.It is now customary to distinguish it from differential topology by the presence of a structure in addition to the differentiable structure.What a differential geometric structure is or should be is a matter of taste.At the present state of the field a definition general enough to include all the significant structures will certainly contain many uninteresting ones.Among the attempts at a general definition is the notion of a geometric object initiated by Oswald Veblen [l30].Not all the geometrical structures are "equal".It would seem that the riemannian and complex structures, with their contacts with other fields of mathematics and with their richness in results, should occupy a central position in differential geometry.A unifying idea is the notion of a G-structure, which is the modern version of a local equivalence problem first emphasized and exploited in its various special cases by Elie Cartan [36], [41], [129].Generally we will restrict ourselves in this article to the discussion of problems which fall under the notion of a G-structure.Two general problems are of importance: I. Existence or nonexistence of certain structures on a manifold.EXAMPLE 1.A positive definite riemannian structure always exists.EXAMPLE 2. On a compact manifold M a nowhere zero differentiable vector field exists if and only if the Euler-Poincaré characteristic of M is zero.EXAMPLE 3. One may ask whether a nonzero vector field exists on M (supposed to be compact and orientable) which is parallel with respect to a riemannian metric.By Hodge's harmonic forms a necessary condition is that the first Betti number b l of M is ^ 1.One can further prove that the second Betti number b 2 ^bl -1 (cf.§5).These conditions are probably not sufficient.II. Local and global properties of a given structure.EXAMPLE 1.For a riemannian structure this means riemannian geometry.EXAMPLE 2. If we are only interested in the existence or nonexist-i 9 66] i 9 66]

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Crossref · 10.1090/s0002-9904-1966-11473-8

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Research works printed but not linked: 26

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  2. [8]8. •, Some examples of complex manifolds, Bonn. Math. Schr. 6 (1958), 1-28.
  3. [11]11. 1 Charakteristiche Klassen und Anwendungen, Enseignement Math. 7 (1961), 188-213.
  4. [16]16. Les variétés riemanniennes dont la courbure satisfait certaines condi- tions, pp. 447-456, Proc. Internat. Congress Math., 1962.
  5. [18]18. L. Bers, Spaces of Riemann surfaces, pp. 349-361, Proc. Internat. Congress Math., 1958.
  6. [23]23. W. Blaschke and G. Bol, Geometrie der Gewebe, Springer, Berlin, 1938.
  7. [32]32. f L CS sousgroupes des groupes continus de transformations, Ann. Sci. École Norm Sup. Paris 25 (1908), 57-194 ( = Oeuvres complètes, Partie II, pp. 719- 856).
  8. [34]34. > s ur i a possibilité de plonger un espace riemannien donné dans un espace euclidien, Ann. Soc. Polon. Math. 6 (1927), 1-7 ( =
  9. [35]35. Oeuvres complètes, Partie III, pp. 1091-1097).
  10. [38]38. H. Cartan, Variétés analytiques complexes et cohomologie, Colloque tenu à Bruxelles, 1953, pp. 41-55;
  11. [42]42. Pseudo-groupes continus infinis. Geometrie différentielle, Colloquium, Strasbourg, pp. 119-136, 1953, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1953.
  12. [46]46. II, Michigan Math. J 5 (1958), 5-12.
  13. [52]52. Thone, Liège, 1951. 51. 1? $ ur i a théorie des variétés feuilletées, Univ. Roma 1st. Naz. Alta Rend Mat. e Appl. (5) 10 (1951), 64-82.
  14. [58]58. D. Gromoll, Differenzierbare Strukturen und Metriken positiver Krümmung auf Sphàren, Dissertation, Univ. of Bonn, Bonn, 1964.
  15. [61]61. Variétés feuilletées, Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa. 16 (1962), 367-397.
  16. [66]66. Komplexe Mannigfalligkeiten, pp. 119-136, Proc. Internat. Congress Math., 1958.
  17. [70]70. II, Duke Math. J. 8 (1941), 11-46.
  18. [77]77. f o n filtered Lie algebras and geometnc structures. I, J. Math. Mech. 13 (1964), 875-908;
  19. [78]78. II, J. Math. Mech. 14 (1965), 513-521;
  20. [79]79. III, J. Math. Mech. 14 (1965), 679-706;
  21. [80]80. IV, J. Math. Mech. 15 (1966), 163-175;
  22. [85]85. On Kdhler varieties of restricted type, Ann. of Math. 60 (1954), 28-48.
  23. [87]87. Q n deformations of complex analytic structures. I, II, Ann. of Math. 67 (1958), 328-466;
  24. [88]88. III, Ann. of Math. 71 (1960), 43-76.
  25. [91]91. II, Indag. Math. 17 (1955), 683-689.
  26. [98]98. P. Liebermann, Problèmes d'équivalence relatifs à une structure presque com- plexe sur une variété à quatre dimensions, Acad. Roy. Belg. Bull. Cl. Sci. (5) 36 (1950), 742-755.

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Metadata

Authors
Chern, S. S.
Corresponding author
Chern, S. S.
Venue
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
Published
1966-03-01
Volume
72
Issue
2
Pages
167-220
ISSN
0002-9904 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W1980777192
Cited by
159
References
143
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 5
FWCI
2.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (publishedVersion)
  • Project Euclid (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Geometry and Topology › Advanced Differential Geometry Research
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Geometry and Topology › Geometry and complex manifolds
  • Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Applied Mathematics › Geometric Analysis and Curvature Flows
Keywords
G-structures, geometric structures on manifolds, Riemannian structure, complex structure, vector fields, Euler characteristic, harmonic forms, parallel vector fields

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