This book deals with analytic treatments of Markov processes. Symmetric Dirichlet forms and their associated Markov processes are important and powerful tools in the theory of Markov processes and their applications. The theory is well studied and used in various fields. In this monograph, we intend to generalize the theory to non-symmetric and time dependent semi-Dirichlet forms. By this generalization, we can cover the wide class of Markov processes and analytic theory which do not possess the dual Markov processes. In particular, under the semi-Dirichlet form setting, the stochastic calculus is not well established yet. In this monograph, we intend to give an introduction to such calculus. Furthermore, basic examples different from the symmetric cases are given. The text is written for graduate students, but also researchers.

This book contains an introductory and comprehensive account of the theory of (symmetric) Dirichlet forms. Moreover this analytic theory is unified with the probabilistic potential theory based on symmetric Markov processes and developed further in conjunction with the stochastic analysis based on additive functional. Since the publication of the first edition in 1994, this book has attracted constant interests from readers and is by now regarded as a standard reference for the theory of Dirichlet forms. For the present second edition, the authors not only revised the existing text, but also added sections on capacities and Sobolev type inequalities, irreducible recurrence and ergodicity, recurrence and Poincare type inequalities, the Donsker-Varadhan type large deviation principle, as well as several new exercises with solutions. The book addresses to researchers and graduate students who wish to comprehend the area of Dirichlet forms and symmetric Markov processes.

Masatoshi Fukushima is one of the most influential probabilists of our times. His fundamental work on Dirichlet forms and Markov processes made Hilbert space methods a tool in stochastic analysis and by this he opened the way to several new developments. His impact on a new generation of probabilists can hardly be overstated. These Selecta collect 25 of Fukushima's seminal articles published between 1967 and 2007.