RESUMEN
In this work, we adopt a new approach to the construction of a global theory of algebras of generalized functions on manifolds based on the concept of smoothing operators. This produces a generalization of previous theories in a form which is suitable for applications to differential geometry. The generalized Lie derivative is introduced and shown to extend the Lie derivative of Schwartz distributions. A new feature of this theory is the ability to define a covariant derivative of generalized scalar fields which extends the covariant derivative of distributions at the level of association. We end by sketching some applications of the theory. This work also lays the foundations for a nonlinear theory of distributional geometry that is developed in a subsequent paper that is based on Colombeau algebras of tensor distributions on manifolds.
RESUMEN
This paper builds on the theory of nonlinear generalized functions begun in Nigsch & Vickers (Nigsch, Vickers 2021 Proc. R. Soc. A 20200640 (doi:10.1098/rspa.2020.0640)) and extends this to a diffeomorphism-invariant nonlinear theory of generalized tensor fields with the sheaf property. The generalized Lie derivative is introduced and shown to commute with the embedding of distributional tensor fields and the generalized covariant derivative commutes with the embedding at the level of association. The concept of a generalized metric is introduced and used to develop a non-smooth theory of differential geometry. It is shown that the embedding of a continuous metric results in a generalized metric with well-defined connection and curvature and that for C 2 metrics the embedding preserves the curvature at the level of association. Finally, we consider an example of a conical metric outside the Geroch-Traschen class and show that the curvature is associated to a delta function.
RESUMEN
We present a construction of algebras of generalized functions of Colombeau-type which, instead of asymptotic estimates with respect to a regularization parameter, employs only topological estimates on certain spaces of kernels for its definition.