Differential Geometry I Autumn 2025

Lecturer
Sobhan Seyfaddini
Coordinator
Matilde Gianocca
Time and Location:
Tuesday, 08:15 - 10:00 in HG E 1.2
Thursday, 10:15 - 12:00 in ML H 44

Content

Introduction to differential geometry and differential topology. Contents: Curves, (hyper-)surfaces in \(\mathbb R^n\), geodesics, curvature, Theorema Egregium, Theorem of Gauss-Bonnet. Hyperbolic space. Differentiable manifolds, immersions and embeddings, Sard's Theorem, mapping degree and intersection number, vector bundles, vector fields and flows, differential forms, Stokes' Theorem.

Lectures

Week Date Topics
1 16.09 Arc length and reparametrization of curves, Frenet curves and curvatures, Frenet equations.
19.09 The fundamental theorem of local curve theory, rotation index, Hopf Umlaufsatz and total curvature of plane curves.
2 23.9 Fenchel-Borsuk theorem. Submanifolds and immersions. Regular value theorem and statement of immersion theorem.
26.9 Proof of immersion theorem, local parametrizations and parameter transformation. Tangent space, normal space, differentiability and differential of maps on submanifolds. 
3 30.9 Orientability and a proposition on orientable hypersurfaces, Jordan-Brouwer Separation theorem. Discussed the statement of Schonflies theorem.
2.10 Section 3.1, Urs Lang'a notes.  
4 7.10 First fundamental form of submanifolds and immersions, examples. Area of graphs, isometries, Christoffel symbols.
9.10 Covariant derivative and parallel vector field, existence of parallel vector fields, parallel transport on $S^2$. Geodesics, Clairaut's relation, first variation of arc length. 
5 14.10 Shape operator and second fundamental form. Normal curvature, principal curvatures and examples. Umbilical points, Gauss curvature and mean curvature.
16.10 Integrability conditions and Gauss's theorema egregium.
6 21.10 Geodesic Parallel & Fermi coordinates (features, existence). Example with a surface of rotation. Constant Gauss curvature in Fermi coordinates. Proof that constant, equal Gauss curvature implies everywhere local isometry. Surfaces of rotation with constant Gauss curvature.
23.10 Ruled surfaces: definition and curvature. Examples. Every 0-curvature with no planar points surface is locally a ruled surface. Minimal surfaces. Variation of the area functional under local normal perturbations. Isothermal coordinates. Isothermal coordinates and their Laplacian. Examples of isothermal parametrisation: catenoid and helicoid.
7 28.10 Gauss-Bonet Theorem
30.10 Poincaré-Hopf Theorem
8 4.11 Minkowski space, the hyperboloid model of hyperbolic m-space, isometries and geodesics.
6.11 Beltrami-Klein model, Poincaré disk model and halfspace model of H^m. Hilbert's theorem with a sketch of proof, and the statement of Nash-Kuiper theorem.
9 11.11 Differential topology: differentiable manifolds, smooth structures, differentiable maps and tangent spaces.
13.11 Tangent bundle, differential and partition of unity. Equivalent definitions of submanifolds, regular value theorem.
10 18.11 Embeddability of compact manilfolds. Tangent vectors as derivations. Sets of measure zero, statement of Sard's Theorem.
20.11 Halfspace, manifolds with boundary, regular value theorem for manifolds with boundary, no retraction theorem and Brouwer fixed point theorem.
11 25.11 Smooth homotopies and isotopies, mapping degree mod 2, homotopy invariance, mapping degree, hairy ball theorem and statement of Hopf's theorem.
27.11 Transverse maps and a generalization of regular value theorem. Parametric transversality theorem, existence of homotopy to a transverse map, intersection number modulo 2
12 2.12 Vector bundles, bundle maps and isomorphisms, sections, criterion for triviality,
4.12 transition maps, structure group, Cotangent bundle, pull-back bundle
13 9.12 Whitney sum, tensor bundles, tensor fields. Flow of vector fields, Lie brackets.
11.12 Lie derivative of vector fields, differential forms, exterior product, exterior derivative.
14 16.12 A coordinate-free expression for the exterior derivative and pull-back forms. Measurable decomposition, integrability and integration of forms.
18.12 Stokes' theorem, volume form and integration without orientation.

Exercises

The new exercise sheet will be uploaded on this page on Thursday after the lecture. You are supposed to have a look at it before the exercise class, so that you can ask questions if you need to. You have time until the following Friday at 12:15 to upload your solutions.

Please, upload your solution via the SAM upload tool.

In order to access the website you will need a NETHZ-account and you will have to be connected to the ETH-network. From outside the ETH network you can connect to the ETH network via VPN. Here are instructions on how to do that.

Make sure that your solution is one PDF file and that its file name is formatted in the following way:

solution_<number of exercise sheet>_<your last name>_<your first name>.pdf

Example: solution_2_Surname_Name.pdf.

Exercise classes

TimeRoomAssistantLanguage
Th 13:15-14:00HG E 22Michler Finnen
Th 16:15-17:00IFW C 33Michler Finnen
Fr 12:15-13:00HG E 21Steffens Derken
Fr 13:15-14:00HG E 21Steffens Derken

Literature

Differential Geometry in \(\mathbb R^n\): Differential Topology: Partial lecture notes from the course taught in Fall 2019 are available from Prof. Lang's website.