Stephen Carl Preston

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Brooklyn College

We consider the EPDiff equation on $\mathbb{R}^n$ with the integer-order homogeneous Sobolev inertia operator $A=(-\Delta)^k$. We prove that for arbitrary radial initial data and a sign condition on the initial momentum, the corresponding radial velocity solution has $C^1$ norm that blows up in finite time whenever $0\le k<n/2+1.$ Our approach is t...

In a Lie group equipped with a left-invariant metric, we study the minimizing properties of geodesics through the presence of conjugate points. We give criteria for the existence of conjugate points along steady and nonsteady geodesics, using different strategies in each case. We consider both general Lie groups and quadratic Lie groups, where the...

We investigate the geometry of a family of equations in two dimensions which interpolate between the Euler equations of ideal hydrodynamics and the inviscid surface quasi-geostrophic equation. This family can be realised as geodesic equations on groups of diffeomorphisms. We show precisely when the corresponding Riemannian exponential map is non-li...

In this article we propose a novel geometric model to study the motion of a physical flag. In our approach, a flag is viewed as an isometric immersion from the square with values in R3\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepacka...

The geodesics in the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms (volumorphisms) of a manifold M , for a Riemannian metric defined by the kinetic energy, can be used to model the movement of ideal fluids in that manifold. The existence of conjugate points along such geodesics reveal that these cease to be infinitesimally length-minimizing between th...

In this paper, we compute the sectional curvature of the group whose Euler-Arnold equation is the quasi-geostrophic (QG) equation in geophysics and oceanography, or the Hasegawa-Mima equation in plasma physics: this group is a central extension of the quantomorphism group Dq(M). We consider the case where the underlying manifold M is rotationally s...

In this paper, we study the geometry induced by the Fisher-Rao metric on the parameter space of Dirichlet distributions. We show that this space is a Hadamard manifold, i.e. that it is geodesically complete and has everywhere negative sectional curvature. An important consequence for applications is that the Fréchet mean of a set of Dirichlet distr...

In this article, we introduce a family of elastic metrics on the space of parametrized surfaces in 3D space using a corresponding family of metrics on the space of vector-valued one-forms. We provide a numerical framework for the computation of geodesics with respect to these metrics. The family of metrics is invariant under rigid motions and repar...

We study the Riemannian geometry of 3D axisymmetric ideal fluids. We prove that the $L^2$ exponential map on the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of a $3$-manifold is Fredholm along axisymmetric flows with sufficiently small swirl. Along the way, we define the notions of axisymmetric and swirl-free diffeomorphisms of any manifold with sui...

Of concern is the study of the long-time existence of solutions to the Euler–Arnold equation of the right-invariant \(H^{\frac{3}{2}}\)-metric on the diffeomorphism group of the circle. In previous work by Escher and Kolev it has been shown that this equation admits long-time solutions if the order s of the metric is greater than \(\frac{3}{2}\), b...

In this article we study the induced geodesic distance of fractional order Sobolev metrics on the groups of (volume preserving) diffeomorphisms and symplectomorphisms. The interest in these geometries is fueled by the observation that they allow for a geometric interpretation for prominent partial differential equations in the field of fluid dynami...

We study the Riemannian geometry of 3D axisymmetric ideal fluids. We prove that the $L^2$ exponential map on the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of a $3$-manifold is Fredholm along axisymmetric flows with sufficiently small swirl. Along the way, we define the notions of axisymmetric and swirl-free diffeomorphisms of any manifold with sui...

In this article we introduce a family of elastic metrics on the space of parametrized surfaces in 3D space using a corresponding family of metrics on the space of vector valued one-forms. We provide a numerical framework for the computation of geodesics with respect to these metrics. The family of metrics is invariant under rigid motions and repara...

In this paper, we compute the sectional curvature of the quantomorphism group $\mathcal{D}_q(M)$ whose geodesic equation is the quasi-geostrophic (QG) equation in geophysics and oceanography. Using this explicit formula, we will also derive a criterion for the curvature operator to be nonpositive and discuss the role of the Froude number and the Ro...

In this article we propose a novel geometric model to study the motion of a physical flag. In our approach a flag is viewed as an isometric immersion from the square with values into $\mathbb R^3$ satisfying certain boundary conditions at the flag pole. Under additional regularity constraints we show that the space of all such flags carries the str...

Of concern is the study of the long-time existence of solutions to the Euler--Arnold equation of the right-invariant $H^{3/2}$-metric on the diffeomorphism group of the circle. In previous work by Escher and Kolev it has been shown that this equation admits long-time solutions if the order $s$ of the metric is greater than $3/2$, the behaviour for...

In this article we introduce a diffeomorphism-invariant metric on the space of vector valued one-forms. The particular choice of metric is motivated by potential future applications in the field of functional data and shape analysis and by connections to the Ebin-metric on the space of all Riemannian metrics. In the present work we calculate the ge...

These are the proceedings of the workshop "Math in the Black Forest", which brought together researchers in shape analysis to discuss promising new directions. Shape analysis is an inter-disciplinary area of research with theoretical foundations in infinite-dimensional Riemannian geometry, geometric statistics, and geometric stochastics, and with a...

We prove that the Riemannian exponential map of the right-invariant $L^2$ metric on the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of a two-dimensional manifold with a nonempty boundary is a nonlinear Fredholm map of index zero.

In this paper we prove that for s>3/2, all Hs solutions of the Euler–Weil–Petersson equation, which describes geodesics on the universal Teichmüller space under the Weil–Petersson metric, will remain in Hs for all time. This extends the work of Escher–Kolev for strong Riemannian metrics to the borderline case of H3/2 metrics. In addition we show th...

In this article we study the induced geodesic distance of fractional order Sobolev metrics on the groups of (volume preserving) diffeomorphisms and symplectomorphisms. The interest in these geometries is fueled by the observation that they allow for a geometric interpretation for prominent partial differential equations in the field of fluid dynami...

In this paper we prove the local well-posedness of the Camassa-Holm equation on the real line in the space of continuously differentiable diffeomorphisms with an appropriate decaying condition. This work was motivated by G. Misiolek who proved the same result for the Camassa-Holm equation on the periodic domain. We use the Lagrangian approach and r...

We prove that the Riemannian exponential map of the right-invariant $L^2$ metric on the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of a two-dimensional manifold with a nonempty boundary is a nonlinear Fredholm map of index zero.

In this paper we prove that all initially-smooth solutions of the Euler-Weil-Petersson equation, which describes geodesics on the universal Teichm\"uller space under the Weil-Petersson metric, will remain smooth for all time. This extends the work of Escher-Kolev for strong Riemannian metrics to the borderline case of $H^{3/2}$ metrics. In addition...

In this paper we are interested in geometric aspects of blowup in the axisymmetric 3D Euler equations with swirl on a cylinder. Writing the equations in Lagrangian form for the flow derivative along either the axis or the boundary and imposing oddness on the vertical component of the flow, we extend some blowup criteria due to Chae, Constantin, and...

We study the pull-back of the 2-parameter family of quotient elastic metrics introduced in Mio-Srivastava-Joshi on the space of arc-length parameterized loops. This point of view has the advantage of concentrating on the manifold of arc-length parameterized curves, which is a very natural manifold when the analysis of un-parameterized curves is con...

We study the pull-back of the 2-parameter family of quotient elastic metrics introduced in Mio-Srivastava-Joshi on the space of arc-length parameterized loops. This point of view has the advantage of concentrating on the manifold of arc-length parameterized curves, which is a very natural manifold when the analysis of un-parameterized curves is con...

In this paper we examine the Riemannian geometry of the group of contactomorphisms of a compact contact manifold. We compute the sectional curvature of Dθ(M) in the sections containing the Reeb field and show that it is non-negative. We also solve explicitly the Jacobi equation along the geodesic corresponding to the flow of the Reeb field and dete...

This article consists of a detailed geometric study of the one-dimensional vorticity model equation $$ \omega_{t} + u\omega_{x} + 2\omega u_{x} = 0, \qquad \omega = H u_{x}, \qquad t\in\RR,\; x\in S^{1}\,, $$ which is a particular case of the generalized Constantin-Lax-Majda equation. Wunsch showed that this equation is the Euler-Arnold equation on...

We define a right-invariant Riemannian metric on the group of contactomorphisms and study its Euler-Arnold equation. If the metric is associated to the contact form, the Euler-Arnold equation reduces to $m_t + u(m) + (n+2) mE(f) = 0$, in terms of the Reeb field $E$, a stream function $f$, the contact vector field $u$ defined by $f$, and the momentu...

The sectional curvature of the volume preserving diffeomorphism group of a Riemannian manifold $M$ can give information about the stability of inviscid, incompressible fluid flows on $M$. We demonstrate that the submanifold of the volumorphism group of the solid flat torus generated by axisymmetric fluid flows with swirl, denoted by $\mathcal{D}_{\...

We study solutions of the equation $$ g_t-g_{tyy} + 4g^2 - 4gg_{yy} = y gg_{yyy}-yg_yg_{yy}, \qquad y\in\mathbb{R},$$ which arises by considering solutions of the Euler-Arnold equation on a contactomorphism group when the stream function is of the form $f(t,x,y,z) = zg(t,y)$. The equation is analogous to both the Camassa-Holm equation and the Proud...

Abstract. We study geodesics of the $H^1$ Riemannian metric $$ \llangle u,v\rrangle = \int_0^1 \langle u(s), v(s)\rangle + \alpha^2 \langle u'(s), v'(s)\rangle \, ds$$ on the space of inextensible curves $\gamma\colon [0,1]\to\mathbb{R}^2$ with $\lvert \gamma'\rvert\equiv 1$. This metric is a regularization of the usual $L^2$ metric on curves, for...

In this article we write the equations of barotropic compressible fluid mechanics as a geodesic equation on an infinite-dimensional manifold. The equations are given by \begin{align} u_t + \nabla_uu = -\frac{1}{\rho} \grad p \\ \rho_t + \diver{(\rho u)} = 0, \end{align} where the fluid fills up a compact manifold $M$, $u$ is a time-dependent veloci...

We are interested in the geometry of the group $\mathcal{D}_q(M)$ of diffeomorphisms preserving a contact form $\theta$ on a manifold $M$. We define a Riemannian metric on $\mathcal{D}_q(M)$, compute the corresponding geodesic equation, and show that solutions exist for all time and depend smoothly on initial conditions. In certain special cases (s...

We study the geometry of the space of densities Dens(M), which is the quotient space Diff(M)/Diffμ (M) of the diffeomorphism group of a compact manifold M by the subgroup of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms, endowed with a right-invariant homogeneous Sobolev ${\dot{H}^1}$ -metric. We construct an explicit isometry from this space to (a subset of...

In this article, we study geometric aspects of the space of arcs parameterized by unit speed in the L 2 metric. Physically, this corresponds to the motion of a whip, and it also arises in studying shape recognition. The geodesic equation is the nonlinear, nonlocal wave equation η tt = ∂s (σ η s ), with \({\lvert \eta_{s}\rvert\equiv 1}\) and σ give...

Many conservative partial differential equations correspond to geodesic equations on groups of diffeomorphisms. Stability of their solutions can be studied by examining sectional curvature of these groups: negative curvature in all sections implies exponential growth of perturbations and hence suggests instability, while positive curvature suggests...

We study the motion of an inextensible string (a whip) fixed at one point in the absence of gravity, satisfying the equations $$ \eta_{tt} = \partial_s(\sigma \eta_s), \qquad \sigma_{ss}-\lvert \eta_{ss}\rvert^2 = -\lvert \eta_{st}\rvert^2, \qquad \lvert \eta_s\rvert^2 \equiv 1 $$ with boundary conditions $\eta(t,1)=0$ and $\sigma(t,0)=0$. We prove...

We study the geometry of the space of densities $\VolM$, which is the quotient space $\Diff(M)/\Diff_\mu(M)$ of the diffeomorphism group of a compact manifold $M$ by the subgroup of volume-preserving diffemorphisms, endowed with a right-invariant homogeneous Sobolev $\dot{H}^1$-metric. We construct an explicit isometry from this space to (a subset...

Suppose there is a smooth solution u of the Euler equation on a 3-dimensional manifold M, with Lagrangian flow η, such that for some Lagrangian path η(t, x) and some time T, we have . Then in particular smoothness breaks down at time T by the Beale-Kato-Majda criterion. We know by the work of Arnold that the Lagrangian solution is a geodesic in the...

We prove that exponential maps of right-invariant Sobolev H r metrics on a variety of diffeomorphism groups of compact manifolds are nonlinear Fredholm maps of index zero as long as r is sufficiently large. This generalizes the result of Ebin et al. (Geom. Funct. Anal. 16, 2006) for the L 2 metric on the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms...

We study the geometry of the inextensible string (the whip) and its discrete approximation (the chain). In the absence of gravity, both motions represent geodesic motions on certain manifolds. We show how the motion of the chain converges to that of a whip, and how the curvature of the chain's configuration space converges to that of the whip's con...

In this paper, we are interested in the location of conjugate points along a geodesic in the volumorphism group of a compact three-dimensional manifold without boundary (the configuration space of an ideal fluid). As shown in the author's previous work, these are typically pathological, i.e., they can occur in clusters along a geodesic, unlike on f...

We find a simple local criterion for the existence of conjugate points on the group of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of a 3-manifold with the Riemannian metric of ideal fluid mechanics, in terms of an ordinary differential equation along each Lagrangian path. Using this criterion, we prove that the first conjugate point along a geodesic in this...

Without Abstract

A steady ideal fluid flow on a surface corresponds to a geodesic in the area-preserving diffeomorphism group. The sign of the curvature operator along this geodesic has been of interest since Arnold noticed its connection to Lagrangian stability of the flow: nonpositive curvature implies by the Rauch comparison theorem that Lagrangian perturbations...

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2002. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 147-148).