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The Connection between Continuum Mechanics and Riemannian Geometry
Burýšek, Miroslav ; Pavelka, Michal (advisor) ; Klika, Václav (referee)
We investigate the systems of quasi-linear partial differential equations of hydrody- namic type. These equations occur mainly in hydrodynamics and continuum mechanics, but they arise in other various applications. In the study of such systems, one finds an intersection of Poisson and pseudo-Riemannian geometry. The Poisson bracket is deter- mined by functions that turn out to be metrics and Christoffel symbols. If the metric is non-degenerate, the existence of Poisson structure is equivalent to the existence of flat metric and Levi-Civita covariant derivative with zero curvature. Moreover, one can find special flat coordinates where the bracket is trivial. This result was found in the eighties by Dubrovin and Novikov for the one-dimensional case and later on extended to more dimensions. In this thesis we provide the proof of the Dubrovin-Novikov theorem, which was only sketched in the original paper. We also conducted an overview of current knowledge in the multi-dimensional case, where the theory gets much more complicated. In particular, the link between the compatible brackets and the possibility of finding flat coordinates is discussed. The Riemannian character of the Hamiltonian equations of hydrodynamic type can be used to prove their symmetric hyperbolicity, even when the equations are not in the...
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