This book provides an introduction to deformation quantization and its relation to quantum field theory, with a focus on the constructions of Kontsevich and Cattaneo & Felder. This subject originated from an attempt to understand the mathematical structure when passing from a commutative classical algebra of observables to a non-commutative quantum algebra of observables. Developing deformation quantization as a semi-classical limit of the expectation value for a certain observable with respect to a special sigma model, the book carefully describes the relationship between the involved algebraic and field-theoretic methods. The connection to quantum field theory leads to the study of important new field theories and to insights in other parts of mathematics such as symplectic and Poisson geometry, and integrable systems. Based on lectures given by the author at the University of Zurich, the book will be of interest to graduate students in mathematics or theoretical physics. Readers will be able to begin the first chapter after a basic course in Analysis, Linear Algebra and Topology, and references are provided for more advanced prerequisites.

This text bridges the gap existing in the field of set theoretical topology between the introductory texts and the more specialised monographs. The authors review fit developments in general topology and discuss important new areas of research and the importance of defining a methodology applicable to this active field of mathematics. The concept of normal cover and related ideas is considered in detail, as are the characterisations of normal spaces, collectionwise normal spaces and their interrelationships with paracompact spaces (and other weaker forms of compactness). Various methods of embedding subspaces are studied, before considering newer concepts such as M-spaces and their relationships with established ideas. These ideas are applied to give new results pertaining to the extension of continuous vector-valued functions. Wallman Frink compactifications and realcompactifications are also studied to assist in unifying the ideas through the use of the more general L-filter.

K-theory is often considered a complicated `specialist's' theory. This book is an introduction to the basics and provides detailed explanation of the various concepts required for a deeper understanding of the subject. Some familiarity with basic C*algebra theory is assumed and then follows a careful construction and analysis of the operator K-theory groups and proof of the results of K-theory, including Bott periodicity.

People have been interested in knots at least since the time of Alexander the Great and his encounter with the Gordian knot. There are famous knot illustrations in the Book of Kells and throughout traditional Islamic art. Lord Kelvin believed that atoms were knots in the ether and he encouraged Tait to compile a talbe of knots about 100 years ago. In recent years, the Jones polynomial has stimulated much interest in possible relationships between knot theory and physics. The book is concerned with the fundamental question of the classification of knots, and more generally the classification of arbitrary (compact) topological objects which can occur in our normal space of physical reality. Professor Hemion explains his classification algorithm - using the method of normal surfaces - in a simple and concise way. The reader is thus shown the relevance of such traditional mathematical objects as the Klein bottle or the hyperbolic plane to this basic classification theory. The Classification of Knots and 3-dimensional Spaces will be of interest to mathematicians, physicists, and other scientists who want to apply this basic classification algorithm to their research in knot theory.

This volume provides a unified and accessible account of recent developments regarding the real homotopy type of configuration spaces of manifolds. Configuration spaces consist of collections of pairwise distinct points in a given manifold, the study of which is a classical topic in algebraic topology. One of this theory's most important questions concerns homotopy invariance: if a manifold can be continuously deformed into another one, then can the configuration spaces of the first manifold be continuously deformed into the configuration spaces of the second? This conjecture remains open for simply connected closed manifolds. Here, it is proved in characteristic zero (i.e. restricted to algebrotopological invariants with real coefficients), using ideas from the theory of operads. A generalization to manifolds with boundary is then considered. Based on the work of Campos, Ducoulombier, Lambrechts, Willwacher, and the author, the book covers a vast array of topics, including rational homotopy theory, compactifications, PA forms, propagators, Kontsevich integrals, and graph complexes, and will be of interest to a wide audience.

This book collects papers on major topics in fixed point theory and its applications. Each chapter is accompanied by basic notions, mathematical preliminaries and proofs of the main results. The book discusses common fixed point theory, convergence theorems, split variational inclusion problems and fixed point problems for asymptotically nonexpansive semigroups; fixed point property and almost fixed point property in digital spaces, nonexpansive semigroups over CAT( ) spaces, measures of noncompactness, integral equations, the study of fixed points that are zeros of a given function, best proximity point theory, monotone mappings in modular function spaces, fuzzy contractive mappings, ordered hyperbolic metric spaces, generalized contractions in b-metric spaces, multi-tupled fixed points, functional equations in dynamic programming and Picard operators. This book addresses the mathematical community working with methods and tools of nonlinear analysis. It also serves as a reference, source for examples and new approaches associated with fixed point theory and its applications for a wide audience including graduate students and researchers.

This monograph explores the concept of the Brouwer degree and its continuing impact on the development of important areas of nonlinear analysis. The authors define the degree using an analytical approach proposed by Heinz in 1959 and further developed by Mawhin in 2004, linking it to the Kronecker index and employing the language of differential forms. The chapters are organized so that they can be approached in various ways depending on the interests of the reader. Unifying this structure is the central role the Brouwer degree plays in nonlinear analysis, which is illustrated with existence, surjectivity, and fixed point theorems for nonlinear mappings. Special attention is paid to the computation of the degree, as well as to the wide array of applications, such as linking, differential and partial differential equations, difference equations, variational and hemivariational inequalities, game theory, and mechanics. Each chapter features bibliographic and historical notes, and the final chapter examines the full history. Brouwer Degree will serve as an authoritative reference on the topic and will be of interest to professional mathematicians, researchers, and graduate students.

This book presents, in a clear and structured way, the set function \mathcal{T} and how it evolved since its inception by Professor F. Burton Jones in the 1940s. It starts with a very solid introductory chapter, with all the prerequisite material for navigating through the rest of the book. It then gradually advances towards the main properties, Decomposition theorems, \mathcal{T}-closed sets, continuity and images, to modern applications. The set function \mathcal{T} has been used by many mathematicians as a tool to prove results about the semigroup structure of the continua, and about the existence of a metric continuum that cannot be mapped onto its cone or to characterize spheres. Nowadays, it has been used by topologists worldwide to investigate open problems in continuum theory. This book can be of interest to both advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and to experienced researchers as well. Its well-defined structure make this book suitable not only for self-study but also as support material to seminars on the subject. Its many open problems can potentially encourage mathematicians to contribute with further advancements in the field.

Als mehrbandiges Nachschlagewerk ist das Springer-Handbuch der Mathematik in erster Linie fur wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken, akademische Institutionen und Firmen sowie interessierte Individualkunden in Forschung und Lehregedacht. Es erganzt das einbandige themenumfassende Springer-Taschenbuch der Mathematik (ehemaliger Titel Teubner-Taschenbuch der Mathematik), das sich in seiner begrenzten Stoffauswahl besonders an Studierende richtet.Teil IV des Springer-Handbuchs enthalt die folgenden Zusatzkapitel zum Springer-Taschenbuch: Hohere Analysis, Lineare sowie Nichtlineare Funktionalanalysis und ihre Anwendungen, Dynamische Systeme, Nichtlineare partielle Differentialgleichungen, Mannigfaltigkeiten, Riemannsche Geometrie und allgemeine Relativitatstheorie, Liegruppen, Liealgebren und Elementarteilchen, Topologie, Krummung und Analysis.

The book is a collection of surveys and original research articles concentrating on new perspectives and research directions at the crossroads of algebraic geometry, topology, and singularity theory. The papers, written by leading researchers working on various topics of the above fields, are the outcome of the "Nemethi60: Geometry and Topology of Singularities" conference held at the Alfred Renyi Institute of Mathematics in Budapest, from May 27 to 31, 2019. Both the conference and this resulting volume are in honor of Professor Andras Nemethi, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, whose work plays a decisive and influential role in the interactions between the above fields. The book should serve as a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers to deepen the new perspectives, methods, and connections between geometry and topology regarding singularities.

This elegant book by distinguished mathematician John Milnor, provides a clear and succinct introduction to one of the most important subjects in modern mathematics. Beginning with basic concepts such as diffeomorphisms and smooth manifolds, he goes on to examine tangent spaces, oriented manifolds, and vector fields. Key concepts such as homotopy, the index number of a map, and the Pontryagin construction are discussed. The author presents proofs of Sard's theorem and the Hopf theorem.

This book, the third book in the four-volume series in algebra, deals with important topics in homological algebra, including abstract theory of derived functors, sheaf co-homology, and an introduction to etale and l-adic co-homology. It contains four chapters which discuss homology theory in an abelian category together with some important and fundamental applications in geometry, topology, algebraic geometry (including basics in abstract algebraic geometry), and group theory. The book will be of value to graduate and higher undergraduate students specializing in any branch of mathematics. The author has tried to make the book self-contained by introducing relevant concepts and results required. Prerequisite knowledge of the basics of algebra, linear algebra, topology, and calculus of several variables will be useful.

The volume consists of a set of surveys on geometry in the broad sense. The goal is to present a certain number of research topics in a non-technical and appealing manner. The topics surveyed include spherical geometry, the geometry of finite-dimensional normed spaces, metric geometry (Bishop-Gromov type inequalities in Gromov-hyperbolic spaces), convexity theory and inequalities involving volumes and mixed volumes of convex bodies, 4-dimensional topology, Teichmuller spaces and mapping class groups actions, translation surfaces and their dynamics, and complex higher-dimensional geometry. Several chapters are based on lectures given by their authors to middle-advanced level students and young researchers. The whole book is intended to be an introduction to current research trends in geometry.

Noncommutative localization is a powerful algebraic technique for constructing new rings by inverting elements, matrices and more generally morphisms of modules. Originally conceived by algebraists (notably P. M. Cohn), it is now an important tool not only in pure algebra but also in the topology of non-simply-connected spaces, algebraic geometry and noncommutative geometry. This volume consists of 9 articles on noncommutative localization in algebra and topology by J. A. Beachy, P. M. Cohn, W. G. Dwyer, P. A. Linnell, A. Neeman, A. A. Ranicki, H. Reich, D. Sheiham and Z. Skoda. The articles include basic definitions, surveys, historical background and applications, as well as presenting new results. The book is an introduction to the subject, an account of the state of the art, and also provides many references for further material. It is suitable for graduate students and more advanced researchers in both algebra and topology.

This tract has two purposes: to show what is known about the n-dimensional unit cubes and to demonstrate how Analysis, Algebra, Combinatorics, Graph Theory, Hyperbolic Geometry, Number Theory, can be applied to the study of them. The unit cubes, from any point of view, are among the most important and fascinating objects in an n-dimensional Euclidean space. However, our knowledge about them is still quite limited and many basic problems remain unsolved. In this Tract eight topics about the unit cubes are introduced: cross sections, projections, inscribed simplices, triangulations, 0/1 polytopes, Minkowski's conjecture, Furtwangler's conjecture, and Keller's conjecture. In particular the author demonstrates how deep analysis like log concave measure and the Brascamp-Lieb inequality can deal with the cross section problem, how Hyperbolic Geometry helps with the triangulation problem, how group rings can deal with Minkowski's conjecture and Furtwangler's conjecture, and how Graph Theory handles Keller's conjecture.

This book is the first systematic treatment of this area so far scattered in a vast number of articles. As in classical topology, concrete problems require restricting the (generalized point-free) spaces by various conditions playing the roles of classical separation axioms. These are typically formulated in the language of points; but in the point-free context one has either suitable translations, parallels, or satisfactory replacements. The interrelations of separation type conditions, their merits, advantages and disadvantages, and consequences are discussed. Highlights of the book include a treatment of the merits and consequences of subfitness, various approaches to the Hausdorff's axiom, and normality type axioms. Global treatment of the separation conditions put them in a new perspective, and, a.o., gave some of them unexpected importance. The text contains a lot of quite recent results; the reader will see the directions the area is taking, and may find inspiration for her/his further work. The book will be of use for researchers already active in the area, but also for those interested in this growing field (sometimes even penetrating into some parts of theoretical computer science), for graduate and PhD students, and others. For the reader's convenience, the text is supplemented with an Appendix containing necessary background on posets, frames and locales.

Poincare duality algebras originated in the work of topologists on the cohomology of closed manifolds, and Macaulay's dual systems in the study of irreducible ideals in polynomial algebras. These two ideas are tied together using basic commutative algebra involving Gorenstein algebras. Steenrod operations also originated in algebraic topology, but may best be viewed as a means of encoding the information often hidden behind the Frobenius map in characteristic p<>0. They provide a noncommutative tool to study commutative algebras over a Galois field. In this Tract the authors skilfully bring together these ideas and apply them to problems in invariant theory. A number of remarkable and unexpected interdisciplinary connections are revealed that will interest researchers in the areas of commutative algebra, invariant theory or algebraic topology.

This book offers an essential introduction to the theory of Hilbert space, a fundamental tool for non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Linear, topological, metric, and normed spaces are all addressed in detail, in a rigorous but reader-friendly fashion. The rationale for providing an introduction to the theory of Hilbert space, rather than a detailed study of Hilbert space theory itself, lies in the strenuous mathematics demands that even the simplest physical cases entail. Graduate courses in physics rarely offer enough time to cover the theory of Hilbert space and operators, as well as distribution theory, with sufficient mathematical rigor. Accordingly, compromises must be found between full rigor and the practical use of the instruments. Based on one of the authors's lectures on functional analysis for graduate students in physics, the book will equip readers to approach Hilbert space and, subsequently, rigged Hilbert space, with a more practical attitude. It also includes a brief introduction to topological groups, and to other mathematical structures akin to Hilbert space. Exercises and solved problems accompany the main text, offering readers opportunities to deepen their understanding. The topics and their presentation have been chosen with the goal of quickly, yet rigorously and effectively, preparing readers for the intricacies of Hilbert space. Consequently, some topics, e.g., the Lebesgue integral, are treated in a somewhat unorthodox manner. The book is ideally suited for use in upper undergraduate and lower graduate courses, both in Physics and in Mathematics.

This textbook presents the theory of Metric Spaces necessary for studying analysis beyond one real variable. Rich in examples, exercises and motivation, it provides a careful and clear exposition at a pace appropriate to the material. The book covers the main topics of metric space theory that the student of analysis is likely to need. Starting with an overview defining the principal examples of metric spaces in analysis (chapter 1), it turns to the basic theory (chapter 2) covering open and closed sets, convergence, completeness and continuity (including a treatment of continuous linear mappings). There is also a brief dive into general topology, showing how metric spaces fit into a wider theory. The following chapter is devoted to proving the completeness of the classical spaces. The text then embarks on a study of spaces with important special properties. Compact spaces, separable spaces, complete spaces and connected spaces each have a chapter devoted to them. A particular feature of the book is the occasional excursion into analysis. Examples include the Mazur-Ulam theorem, Picard's theorem on existence of solutions to ordinary differential equations, and space filling curves. This text will be useful to all undergraduate students of mathematics, especially those who require metric space concepts for topics such as multivariate analysis, differential equations, complex analysis, functional analysis, and topology. It includes a large number of exercises, varying from routine to challenging. The prerequisites are a first course in real analysis of one real variable, an acquaintance with set theory, and some experience with rigorous proofs.

The emerging field of computational topology utilizes theory from topology and the power of computing to solve problems in diverse fields. Recent applications include computer graphics, computer-aided design (CAD), and structural biology, all of which involve understanding the intrinsic shape of some real or abstract space. A primary goal of this book is to present basic concepts from topology and Morse theory to enable a non-specialist to grasp and participate in current research in computational topology. The author gives a self-contained presentation of the mathematical concepts from a computer scientist's point of view, combining point set topology, algebraic topology, group theory, differential manifolds, and Morse theory. He also presents some recent advances in the area, including topological persistence and hierarchical Morse complexes. Throughout, the focus is on computational challenges and on presenting algorithms and data structures when appropriate.

This book consists of 16 surveys on Thurston's work and its later development. The authors are mathematicians who were strongly influenced by Thurston's publications and ideas. The subjects discussed include, among others, knot theory, the topology of 3-manifolds, circle packings, complex projective structures, hyperbolic geometry, Kleinian groups, foliations, mapping class groups, Teichmuller theory, anti-de Sitter geometry, and co-Minkowski geometry. The book is addressed to researchers and students who want to learn about Thurston's wide-ranging mathematical ideas and their impact. At the same time, it is a tribute to Thurston, one of the greatest geometers of all time, whose work extended over many fields in mathematics and who had a unique way of perceiving forms and patterns, and of communicating and writing mathematics.

This book comprises an overview of twelve months of intense activity of the research group Geometry, Topology, Algebra, and Applications (GEOMVAP) at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC). Namely, it contains extended abstracts of the group meeting in Cardona and of the international Workshop of Women in Geometry and Topology aligned with a series of workshops in the topic. As such, it includes a panoramic view of the main research interests of the group which focus on varieties and manifolds from the algebraic, topological and differential perspective with a view towards applications. The GEOMVAP group has a long tradition working on various interfaces of algebra, geometry and topology. In the last decade, the group has become active contributor in interdisciplinary science and it is now focused on both a theoretical point of view and the transversal applications to several disciplines including Robotics, Machine Learning, Phylogenetics, Physics and Celestial Mechanics. The increasing interdisciplinarity of modern research and the fact that the boundaries between different areas of mathematics are vanishing, with a constant transfer of problems and techniques between them, makes it difficult to progress without a multidisciplinary approach. GEOMVAP gathers together experts in Algebraic, Symplectic and Arithmetic Geometry to stimulate the interaction between them and to allow the study of each object from different points of view. The book aims at established researchers, as well as at PhD and postdoctoral students who want to learn more about the latest advances in pure and applied Geometry and Topology.

This book delivers stimulating input for a broad range of researchers, from geographers and ecologists to psychologists interested in spatial perception and physicists researching in complex systems. How can one decide whether one surface or spatial object is more complex than another? What does it require to measure the spatial complexity of small maps, and why does this matter for nature, science and technology? Drawing from algorithmics, geometry, topology, probability and informatics, and with examples from everyday life, the reader is invited to cross the borders into the bewildering realm of spatial complexity, as it emerges from the study of geographic maps, landscapes, surfaces, knots, 3D and 4D objects. The mathematical and cartographic experiments described in this book lead to hypotheses and enigmas with ramifications in aesthetics and epistemology.

The book addresses the minimization of special lower semicontinuous functionals over closed balls in metric spaces, called the approximate variation. The new notion of approximate variation contains more information about the bounded variation functional and has the following features: the infimum in the definition of approximate variation is not attained in general and the total Jordan variation of a function is obtained by a limiting procedure as a parameter tends to zero. By means of the approximate variation, we are able to characterize regulated functions in a generalized sense and provide powerful compactness tools in the topology of pointwise convergence, conventionally called pointwise selection principles. The book presents a thorough, self-contained study of the approximate variation and results which were not published previously in book form. The approximate variation is illustrated by a large number of examples designed specifically for this study. The discussion elaborates on the state-of-the-art pointwise selection principles applied to functions with values in metric spaces, normed spaces, reflexive Banach spaces, and Hilbert spaces. The highlighted feature includes a deep study of special type of lower semicontinuous functionals though the applied methods are of a general nature. The content is accessible to students with some background in real analysis, general topology, and measure theory. Among the new results presented are properties of the approximate variation: semi-additivity, change of variable formula, subtle behavior with respect to uniformly and pointwise convergent sequences of functions, and the behavior on improper metric spaces. These properties are crucial for pointwise selection principles in which the key role is played by the limit superior of the approximate variation. Interestingly, pointwise selection principles may be regular, treating regulated limit functions, and irregular, treating highly irregular functions (e.g., Dirichlet-type functions), in which a significant role is played by Ramsey's Theorem from formal logic.

This book provides an introduction to the main geometric structures that are carried by compact surfaces, with an emphasis on the classical theory of Riemann surfaces. It first covers the prerequisites, including the basics of differential forms, the Poincare Lemma, the Morse Lemma, the classification of compact connected oriented surfaces, Stokes' Theorem, fixed point theorems and rigidity theorems. There is also a novel presentation of planar hyperbolic geometry. Moving on to more advanced concepts, it covers topics such as Riemannian metrics, the isometric torsion-free connection on vector fields, the Ansatz of Koszul, the Gauss-Bonnet Theorem, and integrability. These concepts are then used for the study of Riemann surfaces. One of the focal points is the Uniformization Theorem for compact surfaces, an elementary proof of which is given via a property of the energy functional. Among numerous other results, there is also a proof of Chow's Theorem on compact holomorphic submanifolds in complex projective spaces. Based on lecture courses given by the author, the book will be accessible to undergraduates and graduates interested in the analytic theory of Riemann surfaces.