This book focuses on the study of the volume of vector fields on Riemannian manifolds. Providing a thorough overview of research on vector fields defining minimal submanifolds, and on the existence and characterization of volume minimizers, it includes proofs of the most significant results obtained since the subject's introduction in 1986. Aiming to inspire further research, it also highlights a selection of intriguing open problems, and exhibits some previously unpublished results. The presentation is direct and deviates substantially from the usual approaches found in the literature, requiring a significant revision of definitions, statements, and proofs.

Olga Gil-Medrano (1956, Spain) is a retired Full Professor at the University of Valencia, Spain. A leading specialist in the study of vector field volumes on Riemannian manifolds, her research also includes other topics of geometric analysis, such as the geometrical theory of foliations, the Yamabe problem, the geometry of spaces of metrics and other sections of tensor bundles, and variational problems on these spaces. She received the Medal of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society (RSME) in 2021.