The ambient metric /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Fefferman, Charles, 1949-
Imprint:Princeton : Princeton University Press, ©2012.
Description:1 online resource (111 pages)
Language:English
Series:Annals of mathematics studies ; no. 178
Annals of mathematics studies ; no. 178.
Subject:
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11279646
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other authors / contributors:Graham, C. Robin, 1954-
ISBN:9781400840588
1400840589
9781283290951
1283290952
9780691153131
0691153132
9780691153148
0691153140
Digital file characteristics:data file
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 107-111) and index.
Print version record.
Summary:This book develops and applies a theory of the ambient metric in conformal geometry. This is a Lorentz metric in n+2 dimensions that encodes a conformal class of metrics in n dimensions. The ambient metric has an alternate incarnation as the Poincaré metric, a metric in n+1 dimensions having the conformal manifold as its conformal infinity. In this realization, the construction has played a central role in the AdS/CFT correspondence in physics. The existence and uniqueness of the ambient metric at the formal power series level is treated in detail. This includes the derivation of the ambient obstruction tensor and an explicit analysis of the special cases of conformally flat and conformally Einstein spaces. Poincaré metrics are introduced and shown to be equivalent to the ambient formulation. Self-dual Poincaré metrics in four dimensions are considered as a special case, leading to a formal power series proof of LeBrun's collar neighborhood theorem proved originally using twistor methods. Conformal curvature tensors are introduced and their fundamental properties are established. A jet isomorphism theorem is established for conformal geometry, resulting in a representation of the space of jets of conformal structures at a point in terms of conformal curvature tensors. The book concludes with a construction and characterization of scalar conformal invariants in terms of ambient curvature, applying results in parabolic invariant theory.
Other form:Print version: Fefferman, Charles, 1949- Ambient metric. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2011 9780691153131