Nonlinear Hodge Theory on Manifolds with Boundary

The intent of this paper is first to provide a comprehensive and unifying development of Sobolev spaces of differential forms on Riemannian manifolds with boundary. Second, is the study of a particular class of nonlinear, first order, elliptic PDEs called Hodge systems. The Hodge systems are far reaching extensions of the Cauchy-Riemann system and solutions are referred to as Hodge conjugate fields. We formulate and solve the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary value problems for the Hodge systems and establish the L-p-theory for such solutions. Among the many desirable properties of Hodge conjugate fields, we prove, in analogy with the case of holomorphic functions on the plane, the compactness principle and a strong theorem on the removability of singularities. Finally, some relevant examples and applications are indicated.