This textbook aims to fill the gap between those that offer a theoretical treatment without many applications and those that present and apply formulas without appropriately deriving them. The balance achieved will give readers a fundamental understanding of key financial ideas and tools that form the basis for building realistic models, including those that may become proprietary. Numerous carefully chosen examples and exercises reinforce the student's conceptual understanding and facility with applications. The exercises are divided into conceptual, application-based, and theoretical problems, which probe the material deeper. The book is aimed toward advanced undergraduates and first-year graduate students who are new to finance or want a more rigorous treatment of the mathematical models used within. While no background in finance is assumed, prerequisite math courses include multivariable calculus, probability, and linear algebra. The authors introduce additional mathematical tools as needed. The entire textbook is appropriate for a single year-long course on introductory mathematical finance. The self-contained design of the text allows for instructor flexibility in topics courses and those focusing on financial derivatives. Moreover, the text is useful for mathematicians, physicists, and engineers who want to learn finance via an approach that builds their financial intuition and is explicit about model building, as well as business school students who want a treatment of finance that is deeper but not overly theoretical.

This monograph is the first to develop a mathematical theory of gravitational lensing. The theory applies to any finite number of deflector planes and highlights the distinctions between single and multiple plane lensing. Introductory material in Parts I and II present historical highlights and the astrophysical aspects of the subject. Part III employs the ideas and results of singularity theory to put gravitational lensing on a rigorous mathematical foundation.

This monograph, unique in the literature, is the first to develop a mathematical theory of gravitational lensing. The theory applies to any finite number of deflector planes and highlights the distinctions between single and multiple plane lensing. Introductory material in Parts I and II present historical highlights and the astrophysical aspects of the subject. Among the lensing topics discussed are multiple quasars, giant luminous arcs, Einstein rings, the detection of dark matter and planets with lensing, time delays and the age of the universe (Hubble's constant), microlensing of stars and quasars. The main part of the book---Part III---employs the ideas and results of singularity theory to put gravitational lensing on a rigorous mathematical foundation and solve certain key lensing problems. Results are published here for the first time. Mathematical topics discussed: Morse theory, Whitney singularity theory, Thom catastrophe theory, Mather stability theory, Arnold singularity theory, and the Euler characteristic via projectivized rotation numbers. These tools are applied to the study of stable lens systems, local and global geometry of caustics, caustic metamorphoses, multiple lensed images, lensed image magnification, magnification cross sections, and lensing by singular and nonsingular deflectors. Examples, illustrations, bibliography and index make this a suitable text for an undergraduate/graduate course, seminar, or independent thesis project on gravitational lensing. The book is also an excellent reference text for professional mathematicians, mathematical physicists, astrophysicists, and physicists.