Homepage of Volker Branding

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
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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.

Open PhD position

There is an open PhD position (three years) within my new research group for Analysis at the University of Rostock. The topic of the PhD thesis will be in the area of differential geometry and geometric analysis. The official announcement can be found at the link below which should also be used to apply for the position:
Official Announcement
If there are any questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

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

Anna Siffert and I are organizing a minisymposium on Higher Order Variational Problems in Analysis and Geometry
at the Annual 2025 ÖMG-DMV Meeting in Linz.

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

Invited talks

Upcoming talks

09/2025: Constructing biharmonic and conformal biharmonic maps to spheres
Annual 2025 ÖMG-DMV Meeting, Section "Differential Geometry and Global Analysis"

Past talks

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

Teaching

A list of courses that I have taught in the past can be found here.