This book is meant to give an account of recent developments in the theory of Plateau's problem for parametric minimal surfaces and surfaces of prescribed constant mean curvature ("H-surfaces") and its analytical framework. A comprehensive overview of the classical existence and regularity theory for disc-type minimal and H-surfaces is given and recent advances toward general structure theorems concerning the existence of multiple solutions are explored in full detail.

The book focuses on the author's derivation of the Morse-inequalities and in particular the mountain-pass-lemma of Morse-Tompkins and Shiffman for minimal surfaces and the proof of the existence of large (unstable) H-surfaces (Rellich's conjecture) due to Brezis-Coron, Steffen, and the author. Many related results are covered as well. More than the geometric aspects of Plateau's problem (which have been exhaustively covered elsewhere), the author stresses the analytic side. The emphasis lies on the variational method.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This monograph provides an introduction to the theory of Clifford algebras, with an emphasis on its connections with the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras. The book starts with a detailed presentation of the main results on symmetric bilinear forms and Clifford algebras. It develops the spin groups and the spin representation, culminating in Cartan's famous triality automorphism for the group Spin(8). The discussion of enveloping algebras includes a presentation of Petracci's proof of the Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt theorem.

This is followed by discussions of Weil algebras, Chern--Weil theory, the quantum Weil algebra, and the cubic Dirac operator. The applications to Lie theory include Duflo's theorem for the case of quadratic Lie algebras, multiplets of representations, and Dirac induction. The last part of the book is an account of Kostant's structure theory of the Clifford algebra over a semisimple Lie algebra. It describes his "Clifford algebra analogue" of the Hopf-Koszul-Samelson theorem, and explains his fascinating conjecture relating the Harish-Chandra projection for Clifford algebras to the principal sl(2) subalgebra.

Aside from these beautiful applications, the book will serve as a convenient and up-to-date reference for background material from Clifford theory, relevant for students and researchers in mathematics and physics.

"

The aim of this book is to present the fundamental concepts and properties of the geodesic flow of a closed Riemannian manifold. The topics covered are close to my research interests. An important goal here is to describe properties of the geodesic flow which do not require curvature assumptions. A typical example of such a property and a central result in this work is Mane's formula that relates the topological entropy of the geodesic flow with the exponential growth rate of the average numbers of geodesic arcs between two points in the manifold. The material here can be reasonably covered in a one-semester course. I have in mind an audience with prior exposure to the fundamentals of Riemannian geometry and dynamical systems. I am very grateful for the assistance and criticism of several people in preparing the text. In particular, I wish to thank Leonardo Macarini and Nelson Moller who helped me with the writing of the first two chapters and the figures. Gonzalo Tomaria caught several errors and contributed with helpful suggestions. Pablo Spallanzani wrote solutions to several of the exercises. I have used his solutions to write many of the hints and answers. I also wish to thank the referee for a very careful reading of the manuscript and for a large number of comments with corrections and suggestions for improvement.

This book builds upon the revolutionary discovery made in 1974 that when one passes from function f to a function J of paths joining two points A1?A1 the connectivities R1 of the domain of f can be replaced by connectivities R1 over Q, common to the pathwise components of a basic Frechet space of classes of equivalent curves joining A1 to A1. The connectivities R1, termed "Frechet numbers," are proved independent of the choice of A1 ? A1, and of a replacement of Mn by any differential manifold homeomorphic to Mn. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds were first established by James Eells and Joseph H. Sampson in 1964. Wave maps are harmonic maps on Minkowski spaces and have been studied since the 1990s. Yang-Mills fields, the critical points of Yang-Mills functionals of connections whose curvature tensors are harmonic, were explored by a few physicists in the 1950s, and biharmonic maps (generalizing harmonic maps) were introduced by Guoying Jiang in 1986. The book presents an overview of the important developments made in these fields since they first came up. Furthermore, it introduces biwave maps (generalizing wave maps) which were first studied by the author in 2009, and bi-Yang-Mills fields (generalizing Yang-Mills fields) first investigated by Toshiyuki Ichiyama, Jun-Ichi Inoguchi and Hajime Urakawa in 2008. Other topics discussed are exponential harmonic maps, exponential wave maps and exponential Yang-Mills fields.

This volume contains the Proceedings of the conference "Complex and Differential Geometry 2009", held at Leibniz Universitat Hannover, September 14 - 18, 2009. It was the aim of this conference to bring specialists from differential geometry and (complex) algebraic geometry together and to discuss new developments in and the interaction between these fields. Correspondingly, the articles in this book cover a wide area of topics, ranging from topics in (classical) algebraic geometry through complex geometry, including (holomorphic) symplectic and poisson geometry, to differential geometry (with an emphasis on curvature flows) and topology.

Astronomy as well as molecular physics describe non-relativistic motion by an interaction of the same form: By Newton's respectively by Coulomb's potential. But whereas the fundamental laws of motion thus have a simple form, the n-body problem withstood (for n > 2) all attempts of an explicit solution. Indeed, the studies of Poincare at the end of the last century lead to the conclusion that such an explicit solution should be impossible. Poincare himselfopened a new epoch for rational mechanics by asking qual itative questions like the one about the stability of the solar system. To a largeextent, his work, which was critical for the formation of differential geometry and topology, was motivated by problems arising in the analysis of the n-body problem ([38], p. 183). As it turned out, even by confining oneselfto questions ofqualitativenature, the general n-body problem could not be solved. Rather, simplified models were treated, like planar motion or the restricted 3-body problem, where the motion of a test particle did not influence the other two bodies.

A complex torus is a connected compact complex Lie group. Any complex 9 9 torus is of the form X =

Parabolic equations in this framework have been largely ignored and are the primary focus of this work.; This book will appeal to mathematicians and physicists in PDEs who are interested in boundary and initial value problems, and may be used as a supplementary text by graduate students.

Extrinsic geometry describes properties of foliations on Riemannian manifolds which can be expressed in terms of the second fundamental form of the leaves. The authors of "Topics in Extrinsic Geometry of Codimension-One" "Foliations" achieve a technical tour de force, which will lead to important geometric results.

The "Integral Formulae," introduced in chapter 1, is a useful for problems such as: prescribing higher mean curvatures of foliations, minimizing volume and energy defined for vector or plane fields on manifolds, and existence of foliations whose leaves enjoy given geometric properties. The Integral Formulae steams from a Reeb formula, for foliations on space forms which generalize the classical ones. For a special auxiliary functions the formulae involve the Newton transformations of the Weingarten operator.

The central topic of this book is "Extrinsic Geometric Flow "(EGF) on foliated manifolds, which may be a tool for prescribing extrinsic geometric properties of foliations. To develop EGF, one needs "Variational Formulae," revealed in chapter 2, which expresses a change in different extrinsic geometric quantities of a fixed foliation under leaf-wise variation of the Riemannian Structure of the ambient manifold. Chapter 3 defines a general notion of EGF and studies the evolution of Riemannian metrics along the trajectories of this flow(e.g., describes the short-time existence and uniqueness theory and estimate the maximal existence time).Some special solutions (called "Extrinsic Geometric Solutions") of EGF are presented and are of great interest, since they provide Riemannian Structures with very particular geometry of the leaves.

This work is aimed at those who have an interest in the differential geometry of submanifolds and foliations of Riemannian manifolds. "

A number of important topics in complex analysis and geometry are covered in this excellent introductory text. Written by experts in the subject, each chapter unfolds from the basics to the more complex. The exposition is rapid-paced and efficient, without compromising proofs and examples that enable the reader to grasp the essentials. The most basic type of domain examined is the bounded symmetric domain, originally described and classified by Cartan and Harish- Chandra. Two of the five parts of the text deal with these domains: one introduces the subject through the theory of semisimple Lie algebras (Koranyi), and the other through Jordan algebras and triple systems (Roos). Larger classes of domains and spaces are furnished by the pseudo-Hermitian symmetric spaces and related R-spaces. These classes are covered via a study of their geometry and a presentation and classification of their Lie algebraic theory (Kaneyuki). In the fourth part of the book, the heat kernels of the symmetric spaces belonging to the classical Lie groups are determined (Lu). Explicit computations are made for each case, giving precise results and complementing the more abstract and general methods presented. Also explored are recent developments in the field, in particular, the study of complex semigroups which generalize complex tube domains and function spaces on them (Faraut). This volume will be useful as a graduate text for students of Lie group theory with connections to complex analysis, or as a self-study resource for newcomers to the field. Readers will reach the frontiers of the subject in a considerably shorter time than with existing texts.

Visualization and mathematics have begun a fruitful relationship, establishing links between problems and solutions of both fields. In some areas of mathematics, like differential geometry and numerical mathematics, visualization techniques are applied with great success. However, visualization methods are relying heavily on mathematical concepts.
Applications of visualization in mathematical research and the use of mathematical methods in visualization have been topic of an international workshop in Berlin in June 1995. Selected contributions treat topics of particular interest in current research. Experts are reporting on their latest work, giving an overview on this fascinating new area. The reader will get insight to state-of-the-art techniques for solving visualization problems and mathematical questions.

An introductory textbook on the differential geometry of curves and surfaces in three-dimensional Euclidean space, presented in its simplest, most essential form, but with many explanatory details, figures and examples, and in a manner that conveys the theoretical and practical importance of the different concepts, methods and results involved. With problems at the end of each section, and solutions listed at the end of the book. 99 illustrations.

This text provides a comprehensive introduction to Berezin-Toeplitz operators on compact Kahler manifolds. The heart of the book is devoted to a proof of the main properties of these operators which have been playing a significant role in various areas of mathematics such as complex geometry, topological quantum field theory, integrable systems, and the study of links between symplectic topology and quantum mechanics. The book is carefully designed to supply graduate students with a unique accessibility to the subject. The first part contains a review of relevant material from complex geometry. Examples are presented with explicit detail and computation; prerequisites have been kept to a minimum. Readers are encouraged to enhance their understanding of the material by working through the many straightforward exercises.

Lectures: C.B. Allend rfer: Global differential geometry of imbedded manifolds.- Seminars: P. Libermann: Pseudo-groupes infit simaux.

This book provides an original introduction to the geometry of Minkowski space-time. A hundred years after the space-time formulation of special relativity by Hermann Minkowski, it is shown that the kinematical consequences of special relativity are merely a manifestation of space-time geometry.

The book is written with the intention of providing students (and teachers) of the first years of University courses with a tool which is easy to be applied and allows the solution of any problem of relativistic kinematics at the same time. The book treats in a rigorous way, but using a non-sophisticated mathematics, the Kinematics of Special Relativity. As an example, the famous "Twin Paradox" is completely solved for all kinds of motions.

The novelty of the presentation in this book consists in the extensive use of hyperbolic numbers, the simplest extension of complex numbers, for a complete formalization of the kinematics in the Minkowski space-time.

Moreover, from this formalization the understanding of gravity comes as a manifestation of curvature of space-time, suggesting new research fields.

One of the most of exciting aspects is the general relativity pred- tion of black holes and the Such Big Bang. predictions gained weight the theorems through Penrose. singularity pioneered In various by te- books on theorems general relativity singularity are and then presented used to that black holes exist and that the argue universe started with a To date what has big been is bang. a critical of what lacking analysis these theorems predict-' We of really give a proof a typical singul- theorem and this ity use theorem to illustrate problems arising through the of possibilities violations" and "causality weak "shell very crossing These singularities." add to the problems weight of view that the point theorems alone singularity are not sufficient to the existence of predict physical singularities. The mathematical theme of the book In order to both solid gain a of and intuition understanding good for any mathematical theory, one, should to realise it as model of try a a fam- iar non-mathematical theories have had concept. Physical an especially the important on of and impact development mathematics, conversely various modern theories physical rather require sophisticated mathem- ics for their formulation. both and mathematics Today, physics are so that it is often difficult complex to master the theories in both very s- in the of jects. However, case differential pseudo-Riemannian geometry or the general relativity between and mathematics relationship physics is and it is therefore especially close, to from interd- possible profit an ciplinary approach.

The relation between quantum theory and the theory of gravitation remains one of the most outstanding unresolved issues of modern physics. According to general expectation, general relativity as well as quantum (field) theory in a fixed background spacetime cannot be fundamentally correct. Hence there should exist a broader theory comprising both in appropriate limits, i.e., quantum gravity. This book gives readers a comprehensive introduction accessible to interested non-experts to the main issues surrounding the search for quantum gravity. These issues relate to fundamental questions concerning the various formalisms of quantization; specific questions concerning concrete processes, like gravitational collapse or black-hole evaporation; and the all important question concerning the possibility of experimental tests of quantum-gravity effects.

From the reviews of the first edition:
..". In general the articles ... are well written in a style that enables one to grasp the ideas. The actual style is a readable mix of the important results, outlines of proofs and complete proofs when it does not take too long together with readable explanations of what is going on. Also very useful are the large lists of references which are important not only for their mathematical content but also because the references given also contain articles in the Soviet literature which may not be familiar or possibly accessible to readers."
"New Zealand Math. Soc. Newsletter 1991"
..". Here ... a wealth of material is displayed for us, too much to even indicate in a review. ... Your reviewer was very impressed by the contents of both volumes (EMS 2 and 4), recommending them without any restriction. As far as he could judge, most presentations seem fairly complete..."
"Mededelingen van het Wiskundig genootshap 1992 "

Two top experts in topology, O.Ya. Viro and D.B. Fuchs, give an up-to-date account of research in central areas of topology and the theory of Lie groups. They cover homotopy, homology and cohomology as well as the theory of manifolds, Lie groups, Grassmanians and low-dimensional manifolds. Their book will be used by graduate students and researchers in mathematics and mathematical physics.

The central object of this book is the measure of geometric quantities describing N a subset of the Euclidean space (E ,), endowed with its standard scalar product. Let us state precisely what we mean by a geometric quantity. Consider a subset N S of points of the N-dimensional Euclidean space E , endowed with its standard N scalar product. LetG be the group of rigid motions of E . We say that a 0 quantity Q(S) associated toS is geometric with respect toG if the corresponding 0 quantity Q[g(S)] associated to g(S) equals Q(S), for all g?G . For instance, the 0 diameter ofS and the area of the convex hull ofS are quantities geometric with respect toG . But the distance from the origin O to the closest point ofS is not, 0 since it is not invariant under translations ofS. It is important to point out that the property of being geometric depends on the chosen group. For instance, ifG is the 1 N group of projective transformations of E , then the property ofS being a circle is geometric forG but not forG , while the property of being a conic or a straight 0 1 line is geometric for bothG andG . This point of view may be generalized to any 0 1 subsetS of any vector space E endowed with a groupG acting on it.

The only monograph on the topic, this book concerns geometric methods in the theory of differential equations with quadratic right-hand sides, closely related to the calculus of variations and optimal control theory. Based on the author 's lectures, the book is addressed to undergraduate and graduate students, and scientific researchers.

Two surveys introducing readers to the subjects of harmonic analysis on semi-simple spaces and group theoretical methods, and preparing them for the study of more specialised literature. This book will be very useful to students and researchers in mathematics, theoretical physics and those chemists dealing with quantum systems.

In the last few years the use of geometrie methods has permeated many more branehes of mathematies and the seiences. Briefly its role may be eharaeterized as folIows. Whereas methods of mathematieal analysis deseribe phenomena 'in the sm all " geometrie methods eontribute to giving the picture 'in the large'. A seeond no less important property of geometrie methods is the eonvenienee of using its language to deseribe and give qualitative explanations for diverse mathematieal phenomena and patterns. From this point of view, the theory of veetor bundles together with mathematieal analysis on manifolds (global anal- ysis and differential geometry) has provided a major stimulus. Its language turned out to be extremely fruitful: connections on prineipal veetor bundles (in terms of whieh various field theories are deseribed), transformation groups including the various symmetry groups that arise in eonneetion with physieal problems, in asymptotie methods of partial differential equations with small parameter, in elliptie operator theory, in mathematieal methods of classieal meehanies and in mathematieal methods in eeonomies. There are other eur- rently less signifieant applieations in other fields. Over a similar period, uni- versity edueation has ehanged eonsiderably with the appearanee of new courses on differential geometry and topology. New textbooks have been published but 'geometry and topology' has not, in our opinion, been wen eovered from a prae- tieal applieations point of view.

This mathematically-oriented introduction takes the point of view that students should become familiar, at an early stage, with the physics of relativistic continua and thermodynamics within the framework of special relativity. Therefore, in addition to standard textbook topics such as relativistic kinematics and vacuum electrodynamics, the reader will be thoroughly introduced to relativistic continuum and fluid mechanics. There is emphasis on the 3+1 splitting technique.