Deformation Quantization of Almost Kahler Models and Lagrange-Finsler Spaces

Finsler and Lagrange spaces can be equivalently represented as almost Kahler manifolds enabled with a metric compatible canonical distinguished connection structure generalizing the Levi Civita connection. The goal of this paper is to perform a natural Fedosov-type deformation quantization of such geometries. All constructions are canonically derived for regular Lagrangians and/or fundamental Finsler functions on tangent bundles.Comment: the latex 2e variant of the manuscript accepted for JMP, 11pt, 23 page

Range descriptions for the spherical mean Radon transform

The transform considered in the paper averages a function supported in a ball in \RR^n over all spheres centered at the boundary of the ball. This Radon type transform arises in several contemporary applications, e.g. in thermoacoustic tomography and sonar and radar imaging. Range descriptions for such transforms are important in all these areas, for instance when dealing with incomplete data, error correction, and other issues. Four different types of complete range descriptions are provided, some of which also suggest inversion procedures. Necessity of three of these (appropriately formulated) conditions holds also in general domains, while the complete discussion of the case of general domains would require another publication.Comment: LATEX file, 55 pages, two EPS figure

Computing Teichm\"{u}ller Maps between Polygons

By the Riemann-mapping theorem, one can bijectively map the interior of an $n$-gon $P$ to that of another $n$-gon $Q$ conformally. However, (the boundary extension of) this mapping need not necessarily map the vertices of $P$ to those $Q$. In this case, one wants to find the ``best" mapping between these polygons, i.e., one that minimizes the maximum angle distortion (the dilatation) over \textit{all} points in $P$. From complex analysis such maps are known to exist and are unique. They are called extremal quasiconformal maps, or Teichm\"{u}ller maps. Although there are many efficient ways to compute or approximate conformal maps, there is currently no such algorithm for extremal quasiconformal maps. This paper studies the problem of computing extremal quasiconformal maps both in the continuous and discrete settings. We provide the first constructive method to obtain the extremal quasiconformal map in the continuous setting. Our construction is via an iterative procedure that is proven to converge quickly to the unique extremal map. To get to within $\epsilon$ of the dilatation of the extremal map, our method uses $O(1/\epsilon^{4})$ iterations. Every step of the iteration involves convex optimization and solving differential equations, and guarantees a decrease in the dilatation. Our method uses a reduction of the polygon mapping problem to that of the punctured sphere problem, thus solving a more general problem. We also discretize our procedure. We provide evidence for the fact that the discrete procedure closely follows the continuous construction and is therefore expected to converge quickly to a good approximation of the extremal quasiconformal map.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figure

Supersymmetric quantum theory and (non-commutative) differential geometry

We reconsider differential geometry from the point of view of the quantum theory of non-relativistic spinning particles, which provides examples of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. This enables us to encode geometrical structure in algebraic data consisting of an algebra of functions on a manifold and a family of supersymmetry generators represented on a Hilbert space. We show that known types of differential geometry can be classified in terms of the supersymmetries they exhibit. Replacing commutative algebras of functions by non-commutative *-algebras of operators, while retaining supersymmetry, we arrive at a formulation of non-commutative geometry encompassing and extending Connes' original approach. We explore different types of non-commutative geometry and introduce notions of non-commutative manifolds and non-commutative phase spaces. One of the main motivations underlying our work is to construct mathematical tools for novel formulations of quantum gravity, in particular for the investigation of superstring vacua.Comment: 125 pages, Plain TeX fil

Difference Problems and Differential Problems

We state some elementary problems concerning the relation between difference calculus and differential calculus, and we try to convince the reader that, in spite of the simplicity of the statements, a solution of these problems would be a significant contribution to the understanding of the foundations of differential and integral calculus

On the classical geometry of embedded surfaces in terms of Poisson brackets

We consider surfaces embedded in a Riemannian manifold of arbitrary dimension and prove that many aspects of their differential geometry can be expressed in terms of a Poisson algebraic structure on the space of smooth functions of the surface. In particular, we find algebraic formulas for Weingarten's equations, the complex structure and the Gaussian curvature