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Prof. Dr Thomas Mettler

Thomas Mettler
Dean ad interim

Thomas Mettler obtained a degree in physics from ETH Zurich in 2005 and completed his doctorate in the Department of Mathematics at the UniversitĂ© de Fribourg in 2010. He then spent two years in the USA, one year as a Swiss NSF prospective postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Mathematics of the University of California Berkeley and one year as a postdoctoral fellow of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Berkeley. In 2013 he visited England on a Swiss NSF advanced postdoctoral researcher fellowship, split between the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Subsequently, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the UniversitĂ© de Fribourg and at ETH Zurich, before moving to Goethe-University in Frankfurt where he was appointed an assistant professor position in 2015. He joined the faculty of UniDistance Suisse in 2021.

News

When Switzerland Celebrates Geometry: A Look Back at the Swiss Geometry Day

Mathematics is not just about numbers — geometry also holds a prominent place in Swiss research. The Swiss Geometry Day, held on…

When Switzerland Celebrates Geometry: A Look Back at the Swiss Geometry Day

Publications

The titles below link to the published journal versions of the articles, for freely available preprint versions, please follow the arXiv links.

 

Preprints

  • Twistor geometric aspects of projective surfaces

 

Published / accepted for publication

  1. Flat extensions of principal connections and the Chern--Simons 3-form (with A. Cap, K. Flood),
    Ann. Henri Lebesgue (to appear) [arXiv]
  2. The Schwarzian derivative and the degree of a classical minimal surface (with L. Poerschke),
    Exp. Math. 34 (2025) [arXiv]
  3. Induced almost para-Kähler Einstein metrics on cotangent bundles (with A. Cap),
    Q. J. Math. 75 (2024) [arXiv]
  4. Geometric theory of Weyl structures (with A. Cap),
    Commun. Contemp. Math. 25 (2023) [arXiv]
  5. Deformations of the Veronese embedding and Finsler 2-spheres of constant curvature (with C. Lange),
    J. Inst. Math. Jussieu 21 (2022) [arXiv]
  6. Vortices over Riemann surfaces and dominatted splittings (with G. Paternain),
    Ergodic Theory Dynam. Systems 42 (2022) [arXiv]
  7. Metrisability of projective surfaces and pseudo-holomorphic curves,
    Math. Z. 298 (2021) [arXiv]
  8. Extremal conformal structures on projective surfaces,
    Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa Cl. Sci. (5) XX (2020) [arXiv]
  9. Convex projective surfaces with compatible Weyl connection are hyperbolic (with G. Paternain),
    Anal. PDE 13 (2020) [arXiv]
  10. GL(2)-Structures in dimension four, H-Flatness and Integrability (with W. Krynski),
    Comm. Anal. Geom. 27 (2019) [arXiv]
  11. Minimal Lagrangian connections on compact surfaces,
    Adv. Math. 354 (2019) [arXiv]
  12. Holomorphic differentials, thermostats and Anosov flows (with G. Paternain),
    Math. Ann. 373 (2019) [arXiv]
  13. Gauge theory on projective surfaces and anti-self-dual Einstein metrics in dimension four (with M. Dunajski),
    J. Geom. Anal. 28 (2018) [arXiv]
  14. Characterizing classical minimal surfaces via the entropy differential (with J. Bernstein),
    J. Geom. Anal. 27 (2017) [arXiv]
  15. Convex integration and Legendrian approximation of curves (with N. HungerbĂĽhler, M. Wasem),
    J. Convex Anal. 24 (2017) [arXiv]
  16. Geodesic rigidity of conformal connections on surfaces,
    Math. Z. 281 (2015) [arXiv]
  17. Two-dimensional gradient Ricci solitons revisited (with J. Bernstein),
    Int. Math. Res. Not. 2015 (2015) [arXiv]
  18. One-dimensional projective structures, convex curves and the ovals of Benguria and Loss (with J. Bernstein),
    Comm. Math. Phys. 336 (2015) [arXiv]
  19. Four-dimensional Kähler metrics admitting c-projective vector fields (with A. Bolsinov, V. Matveev, S. Rosemann),
    J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 103 (2015) [arXiv]
  20. On Kähler metrisability of two-dimensional complex projective structures,
    Monatsh. Math. 174 (2014) [arXiv]
  21. Weyl metrisability of two-dimensional projective structures,
    Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 156 (2014) [arXiv]
  22. Reduction of β-integrable 2-Segre structures,
    Comm. Anal. Geom. 21 (2013) [arXiv]
  23. Local embeddability of real analytic path geometries,
    Differential Geom. Appl. 30 (2012) [arXiv]
  24. Soliton solutions of the mean curvature flow and minimal hypersurfaces (with N. HungerbĂĽhler),
    Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 140 (2012) [arXiv]
  25. Charges of twisted branes: the exceptional cases (with S. Fredenhagen, M. Gaberdiel),
    J. High Energy Phys. 2005 (2005) [arXiv]

 

Coauthors

 

Supervision at UniDistance Suisse

Postdocs

  • Keegan Flood, 1/2023 - 9/2025
  • Micha Wasem, 7/2021 - 1/2025

PhD Students

  • Lukas Poerschke (2024), PhD awarded from Goethe University Frankfurt
  • Luca Giudici, 9/2025 -
  • Tim Maruhn, 9/2025 -

Research focus

Thomas Mettler's primary research interest is projective differential geometry and its interactions with complex geometry, partial differential equations and dynamical systems.

Research projects

Minimal Lagrangian connections and related structures
Approved amount: -
Funding scheme: -
Mettler Thomas
Status: Completed
Start: 01.01.2020
End: 31.12.2022
Mathematics…
Minimal Lagrangian connections and related structures
Mettler Thomas //
Approved amount:-
Funding scheme: -
Status: Completed
Start: 01.01.2020
End: 31.12.2022
Mathematics…

Research groups

Geometry

Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science

Teaching

M13 Differential Geometry Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Differential Geometry Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Differential Geometry Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
M04 Linear Algebra I Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Linear Algebra I Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Linear Algebra I Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
M06 Linear Algebra II Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Linear Algebra II Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Linear Algebra II Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
M18 Seminar on special topics Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Seminar on special topics Bachelor of Science in Mathematics
Seminar on special topics Bachelor of Science in Mathematics

Functions at UniDistance Suisse

Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science

  • Dean ad interim
  • Associate Professor
  • Programme director Bachelor in Mathematics

Geometry

  • Associate Professor

Faculty Council of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science

  • Dean ad interim
  • Associate Professor
  • Programme director Bachelor in Mathematics

Academic Council

  • Associate Professor
  • Dean ad interim Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science