Exterior Differential Systems and Equivalence Problems

This monograph presents a concise yet elementary account of exterior differential system theory so that it can be quickly applied to problems. The first part of the monograph, Chapters 1-5, deals with the general theory: the Cartan-Kaehler theorem is proved, the notions of involution and prolongation are carefully laid out, quasi-linear differential systems are examined in detail, and explicit examples of the Spencer cohomology groups and the characteristic variety are given. The second part of the monograph, Chapters 6 and 7, deals with applications to problems in differential geometry: the isometric embedding theorem of Cartan-Janet and its various geometric ramifications are discussed, a proof of the Andreotti-Hill theorem on the O-R embedding problem is given, and embeddings of abstract projective structures are discussed. For researchers and graduate students who would like a good introduction to exterior differential systems. This volume will also be particularly useful to those whose work involves differential geometry and partial differential equations.