Graduate Seminar Analysis

Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 10:45am

Flowing to minimal surfaces

Melanie Rupflin, University of Oxford

Abstract: For maps from surfaces there is a close connection between the area functional
and Dirichlet energy and thus also between their critical points. As such, one way to try to
find critical points of the Area is to consider a gradient flow of the Dirichlet energy, which not
only evolves a map but also the domain metric in order to find a map that is not only har-
monic but also (weakly) conformal and thus a (branched) minimal immersion. In this talk I
will discuss the construction of such a flow, the Teichmueller harmonic map flow, and ex-
plain in particular how this flow decomposes any given initial map into one or more bran-
ched minimal immersions.

Interessierte sind herzlich eingeladen.

Ort: Seminarraum 001, Erdgeschoss,  Pontdriesch 14-16 , 52062 Aachen