Volker Branding

ORCID: 0000-0002-1535-1474

Contact Information

University of Vienna
Faculty of Mathematics
Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, Room 03.130
1090 Vienna, Austria
Phone: +43 1 4277 50780
E-Mail: volker[dot]branding[at]univie[dot]ac[dot]at
U:Find

Open PhD position

Currently, there is an open position for a PhD student who will be supervised jointly by Eric Loubeau (UBO Brest) and me. More details on the position and on how to apply can be found here.

Research interests

My research interests are at the intersection of differential geometry, geometric analysis and mathematical physics. In particular, I am interested in harmonic maps and their higher order generalizations such as biharmonic maps. Moreover, I investigate action functionals that arise in theoretical physics with the tools of the geometric calculus of variations.

Short CV

• 2019: Habilitation at University of Vienna
• since 2017: Senior Postdoc at University of Vienna
• 2013 - 2016: Universitätsassistent at TU Wien
• 2012: PhD at University of Potsdam

Research Group

Current members

• Adam Lindström (PhD student, supported by FWF)
• Hui Liu (PhD student, visiting from Fudan University)
• Marko Sobak (Postdoc, supported by FWF)

Former members

• 2023 - 2024: Weijia Li (PhD student, visited from Guangxi University)

Publications and Preprints

• All of my publications are freely available on arxiv.
• Publications on Google Scholar
• My Researchgate profile
• A complete list of my publications can be found here.

Projects and Prizes

• P 36862: The standard model as a geometric variational problem
  Stand-alone Project (FWF), Period of funding: 10/2023 - 09/2026
• P 34853: Geometric analysis of biwave maps
  Stand-alone Project (FWF), Period of funding: 04/2022 - 07/2026
• Promotion Award of the City of Vienna 2020
• P 30749: Geometric Variational Problems from String Theory
  Stand-alone Project (FWF), Period of funding: 10/2017 - 03/2021
• I1671-N26: Transformations and Singularities
  Member of the joint Project between Austria (FWF) and Japan (JSPS),
  Period of funding 07/2014 - 03/2018

Activities

I have been involved in the organization of the following workshops:

• Differential Geometry Workshop 2024 in Brest
• Differential Geometry Workshop 2023 in Iasi
• Differential Geometry Workshop 2022 in Vienna
• Online Workshop on Differential Geometry 2021
• Online Workshop on Differential Geometry 2020

Invited talks

Upcoming talks

• 12/2024: tba
  University of Western Macedonia, online

Past talks

A list of talks that I have given can be found here.

Teaching

If you are looking for a supervisor for your Bachelor or Master thesis in the field of Analysis or Geometry please feel free to send me an email!
A list of courses that I have taught in the past can be found here.