Differential geometric computations and computer algebra (Q1368538)

The authors discuss the use of computer algebra (CA) in the field of differential geometry (DG) and its applications to geometric structures of partial differential equations. A number of CA packages allow to do DG computations: computations for differential forms and vector fields, such as differentiation, inner products, Lie derivatives, and so on. Section 2 contains some historical development; the importance of ``literate programming style'', i.e., programs are developed as ``readable documents'', is pointed out. Section 3 contains geometrical algebraic settings. Due to influences of Russian mathematicians A. M. Vinogradov and I. S. Krasil'shchik, the authors' point of view towards symmetries, conservation laws, prolongations, and other geometrical objects gradually changed towards a vector field approach, the features of which are described compactly here. Section 5 contains ``NOWEB'' programming example. Using a ``WEB'' means that one develops at the same time a document of one's programming efforts as well as the program itself. ``NOWEB'' is a ``WEB'' which is suitable for any CA language. Section 6 contains a rough description of some software CA packages (``Liesurfer'', super vector fields, total derivative operators). In Section 7 an application of the construction of supersymmetric extensions to the Korteweg-de Vries equation is demonstrated.