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Algebraic and Geometric Surgery

Andrew Ranicki

This book is an introduction to surgery theory, the standard algebraic topology classification method for manifolds of dimension greater than 4. It is aimed at those who have already been on a basic ... More

This book is an introduction to surgery theory, the standard algebraic topology classification method for manifolds of dimension greater than 4. It is aimed at those who have already been on a basic topology course, and would now like to understand the topology of high-dimensional manifolds. This text contains entry-level accounts of the various prerequisites of both algebra and topology. Surgery theory expresses the manifold structure set in terms of the topological K-theory of vector bundles and the algebraic L-theory of quadratic forms. While concentrating on the basic mechanics of surgery, this book includes many worked examples, useful drawings for illustration of the algebra and references for further reading.Less

The Ambient Metric (AM-178)

Charles Fefferman and C. Robin Graham

This book develops and applies a theory of the ambient metric in conformal geometry. This is a Lorentz metric in n+2 dimensions that encodes a conformal class of metrics in n dimensions. The ambient ... More

This book develops and applies a theory of the ambient metric in conformal geometry. This is a Lorentz metric in n+2 dimensions that encodes a conformal class of metrics in n dimensions. The ambient metric has an alternate incarnation as the Poincaré metric, a metric in n+1 dimensions having the conformal manifold as its conformal infinity. In this realization, the construction has played a central role in the AdS/CFT correspondence in physics. The existence and uniqueness of the ambient metric at the formal power series level is treated in detail. This includes the derivation of the ambient obstruction tensor and an explicit analysis of the special cases of conformally flat and conformally Einstein spaces. Poincaré metrics are introduced and shown to be equivalent to the ambient formulation. Self-dual Poincaré metrics in four dimensions are considered as a special case, leading to a formal power series proof of LeBrun's collar neighborhood theorem proved originally using twistor methods. Conformal curvature tensors are introduced and their fundamental properties are established. A jet isomorphism theorem is established for conformal geometry, resulting in a representation of the space of jets of conformal structures at a point in terms of conformal curvature tensors. The book concludes with a construction and characterization of scalar conformal invariants in terms of ambient curvature, applying results in parabolic invariant theory.Less

Arithmetic and Geometry: Ten Years in Alpbach (AMS-202)

Gisbert Wüstholz and Clemens Fuchs (eds)

This book presents highlights of recent work in arithmetic algebraic geometry by some of the world's leading mathematicians. Together, these 2016 lectures—which were delivered in celebration of the ... More

This book presents highlights of recent work in arithmetic algebraic geometry by some of the world's leading mathematicians. Together, these 2016 lectures—which were delivered in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the annual summer workshops in Alpbach, Austria—provide an introduction to high-level research on three topics: Shimura varieties, hyperelliptic continued fractions and generalized Jacobians, and Faltings heights and L-functions. The book consists of notes, written by young researchers, on three sets of lectures or minicourses given at Alpbach. The first course contains recent results dealing with the local Langlands conjecture. The fundamental question is whether for a given datum there exists a so-called local Shimura variety. In some cases, they exist in the category of rigid analytic spaces; in others, one has to use Scholze's perfectoid spaces. The second course addresses the famous Pell equation—not in the classical setting but rather with the so-called polynomial Pell equation, where the integers are replaced by polynomials in one variable with complex coefficients, which leads to the study of hyperelliptic continued fractions and generalized Jacobians. The third course originates in the Chowla–Selberg formula and relates values of the L-function for elliptic curves with the height of Heegner points on the curves. It proves the Gross–Zagier formula on Shimura curves and verifies the Colmez conjecture on average.Less

Arithmetic Compactifications of PEL-Type Shimura Varieties

Kai-Wen Lan

By studying the degeneration of abelian varieties with PEL structures, this book explains the compactifications of smooth integral models of all PEL-type Shimura varieties, providing the logical ... More

By studying the degeneration of abelian varieties with PEL structures, this book explains the compactifications of smooth integral models of all PEL-type Shimura varieties, providing the logical foundation for several exciting recent developments. PEL-type Shimura varieties, which are natural generalizations of modular curves, are useful for studying the arithmetic properties of automorphic forms and automorphic representations, and they have played important roles in the development of the Langlands program. As with modular curves, it is desirable to have integral models of compactifications of PEL-type Shimura varieties that can be described in sufficient detail near the boundary, which this book explains in detail. Through the discussion, the book generalizes the theory of degenerations of polarized abelian varieties and the application of that theory to the construction of toroidal and minimal compactifications of Siegel moduli schemes over the integers (as developed by Mumford, Faltings, and Chai). The book is designed to be accessible to graduate students who have an understanding of schemes and abelian varieties.Less

Chow Rings, Decomposition of the Diagonal, and the Topology of Families (AM-187)

Claire Voisin

This book provides an introduction to algebraic cycles on complex algebraic varieties, to the major conjectures relating them to cohomology, and even more precisely to Hodge structures on cohomology. ... More

This book provides an introduction to algebraic cycles on complex algebraic varieties, to the major conjectures relating them to cohomology, and even more precisely to Hodge structures on cohomology. The book is intended for both students and researchers, and not only presents a survey of the geometric methods developed in the last thirty years to understand the famous Bloch-Beilinson conjectures, but also examines recent work by the author. It focuses on two central objects: the diagonal of a variety—and the partial Bloch-Srinivas type decompositions it may have depending on the size of Chow groups—as well as its small diagonal, which is the right object to consider in order to understand the ring structure on Chow groups and cohomology. An exploration of a sampling of recent works by the author looks at the relation, conjectured in general by Bloch and Beilinson, between the coniveau of general complete intersections and their Chow groups and a very particular property satisfied by the Chow ring of K3 surfaces and conjecturally by hyper-Kähler manifolds. In particular, the book delves into arguments originating in Nori's work that have been further developed by others.Less

Complex Ball Quotients and Line Arrangements in the Projective Plane (MN-51)

Paula Tretkoff

This book introduces the theory of complex surfaces through a comprehensive look at finite covers of the projective plane branched along line arrangements. It emphasizes those finite coverings that ... More

This book introduces the theory of complex surfaces through a comprehensive look at finite covers of the projective plane branched along line arrangements. It emphasizes those finite coverings that are free quotients of the complex 2-ball. The book also includes a background on the classical Gauss hypergeometric function of one variable, and a chapter on the Appell two-variable F1 hypergeometric function. The book began as a set of lecture notes, taken by the author, of a course given by Friedrich Hirzebruch at ETH Zürich in 1996. The lecture notes were then considerably expanded over a number of years. In this book, the author has expanded those notes even further, still stressing examples offered by finite covers of line arrangements. The book is largely self-contained and foundational material is introduced and explained as needed, but not treated in full detail. References to omitted material are provided for interested readers. Aimed at graduate students and researchers, this is an accessible account of a highly informative area of complex geometry.Less

The Decomposition of Global Conformal Invariants (AM-182)

Spyros Alexakis

This book addresses a basic question in differential geometry that was first considered by physicists Stanley Deser and Adam Schwimmer in 1993 in their study of conformal anomalies. The question ... More

This book addresses a basic question in differential geometry that was first considered by physicists Stanley Deser and Adam Schwimmer in 1993 in their study of conformal anomalies. The question concerns conformally invariant functionals on the space of Riemannian metrics over a given manifold. These functionals act on a metric by first constructing a Riemannian scalar out of it, and then integrating this scalar over the manifold. Suppose this integral remains invariant under conformal re-scalings of the underlying metric. What information can one then deduce about the Riemannian scalar? This book asserts that the Riemannian scalar must be a linear combination of three obvious candidates, each of which clearly satisfies the required property: a local conformal invariant, a divergence of a Riemannian vector field, and the Chern–Gauss–Bonnet integrand. The book provides a proof of this conjecture. The result itself sheds light on the algebraic structure of conformal anomalies, which appear in many settings in theoretical physics. It also clarifies the geometric significance of the renormalized volume of asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein manifolds. The methods introduced here make an interesting connection between algebraic properties of local invariants—such as the classical Riemannian invariants and the more recently studied conformal invariants—and the study of global invariants, in this case conformally invariant integrals.Less

Differential Geometry: Bundles, Connections, Metrics and Curvature

Clifford Henry Taubes

Bundles, connections, metrics, and curvature are the ‘lingua franca’ of modern differential geometry and theoretical physics. Many of the tools used in differential topology are introduced and the ... More

Bundles, connections, metrics, and curvature are the ‘lingua franca’ of modern differential geometry and theoretical physics. Many of the tools used in differential topology are introduced and the basic results about differentiable manifolds, smooth maps, differential forms, vector fields, Lie groups, and Grassmanians are all presented here. Other material covered includes the basic theorems about geodesics and Jacobi fields, the classification theorem for flat connections, the definition of characteristic classes, and also an introduction to complex and Kähler geometry. The book uses many of the classical examples from, and applications of, the subjects it covers, in particular those where closed form expressions are available, to bring abstract ideas to life.Less

Flips for 3-folds and 4-folds

Alessio Corti (ed.)

The minimal model program in algebraic geometry is a conjectural sequence of algebraic surgery operations that simplifies any algebraic variety to a point where it can be decomposed into pieces with ... More

The minimal model program in algebraic geometry is a conjectural sequence of algebraic surgery operations that simplifies any algebraic variety to a point where it can be decomposed into pieces with negative, zero, and positive curvature, in a similar vein as the geometrization program in topology decomposes a three-manifold into pieces with a standard geometry. The last few years have seen dramatic advances in the minimal model program for higher dimensional algebraic varieties, with the proof of the existence of minimal models under appropriate conditions, and the prospect within a few years of having a complete generalization of the minimal model program and the classification of varieties in all dimensions, comparable to the known results for surfaces and 3-folds. This edited collection of chapters, authored by leading experts, provides a complete and self-contained construction of 3-fold and 4-fold flips, and n-dimensional flips assuming minimal models in dimension n-1. A large part of the text is an elaboration of the work of Shokurov, and a complete and pedagogical proof of the existence of 3-fold flips is presented. The book contains a self-contained treatment of many topics that could only be found, with difficulty, in the specialized literature. The text includes a ten-page glossary.Less

Fourier Restriction for Hypersurfaces in Three Dimensions and Newton Polyhedra (AM-194)

Isroil A. Ikromov and Detlef Müller

This is the first book to present a complete characterization of Stein–Tomas-type Fourier restriction estimates for large classes of smooth hypersurfaces in three dimensions, including all ... More

This is the first book to present a complete characterization of Stein–Tomas-type Fourier restriction estimates for large classes of smooth hypersurfaces in three dimensions, including all real-analytic hypersurfaces. The range of Lebesgue spaces for which these estimates are valid is described in terms of Newton polyhedra associated to the given surface. The book begins with Elias M. Stein's concept of Fourier restriction and some relations between the decay of the Fourier transform of the surface measure and Stein–Tomas-type restriction estimates. Varchenko's ideas relating Fourier decay to associated Newton polyhedra are briefly explained, particularly the concept of adapted coordinates and the notion of height. It turns out that these classical tools essentially suffice already to treat the case where there exist linear adapted coordinates, and thus the book concentrates on the remaining case. Here the notion of r-height is introduced, which proves to be the right new concept. The book then describes decomposition techniques and related stopping time algorithms that allow to partition the given surface into various pieces, which can eventually be handled by means of oscillatory integral estimates. Different interpolation techniques are presented and used, from complex to more recent real methods by Bak and Seeger. Fourier restriction plays an important role in several fields, in particular in real and harmonic analysis, number theory, and PDEs. This book will interest graduate students and researchers working in such fields.Less

Fourier-Mukai Transforms in Algebraic Geometry

D. Huybrechts

This book provides a systematic exposition of the theory of Fourier-Mukai transforms from an algebro-geometric point of view. Assuming a basic knowledge of algebraic geometry, the key aspect of this ... More

This book provides a systematic exposition of the theory of Fourier-Mukai transforms from an algebro-geometric point of view. Assuming a basic knowledge of algebraic geometry, the key aspect of this book is the derived category of coherent sheaves on a smooth projective variety. The derived category is a subtle invariant of the isomorphism type of a variety, and its group of autoequivalences often shows a rich structure. As it turns out — and this feature is pursued throughout the book — the behaviour of the derived category is determined by the geometric properties of the canonical bundle of the variety. Including notions from other areas, e.g., singular cohomology, Hodge theory, abelian varieties, K3 surfaces; full proofs and exercises are provided. The final chapter summarizes recent research directions, such as connections to orbifolds and the representation theory of finite groups via the McKay correspondence, stability conditions on triangulated categories, and the notion of the derived category of sheaves twisted by a gerbe.Less

Geometry and Physics: Volume I: A Festschrift in honour of Nigel Hitchin

Andrew Dancer, Jørgen Ellegaard Andersen, and Oscar García-Prada (eds)

These volumes contain the proceedings of the conference held at Aarhus, Oxford and Madrid in September 2016 to mark the seventieth birthday of Nigel Hitchin, one of the world’s foremost geometers and ... More

These volumes contain the proceedings of the conference held at Aarhus, Oxford and Madrid in September 2016 to mark the seventieth birthday of Nigel Hitchin, one of the world’s foremost geometers and Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. The proceedings contain twenty-nine articles, including three by Fields medallists (Donaldson, Mori and Yau). The articles cover a wide range of topics in geometry and mathematical physics, including the following: Riemannian geometry, geometric analysis, special holonomy, integrable systems, dynamical systems, generalized complex structures, symplectic and Poisson geometry, low-dimensional topology, algebraic geometry, moduli spaces, Higgs bundles, geometric Langlands programme, mirror symmetry and string theory. These volumes will be of interest to researchers and graduate students both in geometry and mathematical physics.Less

Geometry and Physics: Volume II: A Festschrift in honour of Nigel Hitchin

Andrew Dancer, Jørgen Ellegaard Andersen, and Oscar García-Prada (eds)

These volumes contain the proceedings of the conference held at Aarhus, Oxford and Madrid in September 2016 to mark the seventieth birthday of Nigel Hitchin, one of the world’s foremost geometers and ... More

These volumes contain the proceedings of the conference held at Aarhus, Oxford and Madrid in September 2016 to mark the seventieth birthday of Nigel Hitchin, one of the world’s foremost geometers and Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. The proceedings contain twenty-nine articles, including three by Fields medallists (Donaldson, Mori and Yau). The articles cover a wide range of topics in geometry and mathematical physics, including the following: Riemannian geometry, geometric analysis, special holonomy, integrable systems, dynamical systems, generalized complex structures, symplectic and Poisson geometry, low-dimensional topology, algebraic geometry, moduli spaces, Higgs bundles, geometric Langlands programme, mirror symmetry and string theory. These volumes will be of interest to researchers and graduate students both in geometry and mathematical physics.Less

Hodge Theory (MN-49)

Eduardo Cattani, Fouad El Zein, Phillip A. Griffiths, and Lê Dung Tráng

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to Hodge theory—one of the central and most vibrant areas of contemporary mathematics—from leading specialists on the subject. The ... More

This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to Hodge theory—one of the central and most vibrant areas of contemporary mathematics—from leading specialists on the subject. The topics range from the basic topology of algebraic varieties to the study of variations of mixed Hodge structure and the Hodge theory of maps. Of particular interest is the study of algebraic cycles, including the Hodge and Bloch–Beilinson Conjectures. Based on lectures delivered at the 2010 Summer School on Hodge Theory at the ICTP in Trieste, Italy, the book is intended for a broad group of students and researchers. The exposition is as accessible as possible and does not require a deep background. At the same time, the book presents some topics at the forefront of current research. The book is divided between introductory and advanced lectures. The introductory lectures address Kähler manifolds, variations of Hodge structure, mixed Hodge structures, the Hodge theory of maps, period domains and period mappings, algebraic cycles (up to and including the Bloch–Beilinson conjecture) and Chow groups, sheaf cohomology, and a new treatment of Grothendieck's algebraic de Rham theorem. The advanced lectures address a Hodge-theoretic perspective on Shimura varieties, the spread philosophy in the study of algebraic cycles, absolute Hodge classes (including a new, self-contained proof of Deligne's theorem on absolute Hodge cycles), and variation of mixed Hodge structures.Less

Hypoelliptic Laplacian and Orbital Integrals (AM-177)

Jean-Michel Bismut

This book uses the hypoelliptic Laplacian to evaluate semisimple orbital integrals in a formalism that unifies index theory and the trace formula. The hypoelliptic Laplacian is a family of operators ... More

This book uses the hypoelliptic Laplacian to evaluate semisimple orbital integrals in a formalism that unifies index theory and the trace formula. The hypoelliptic Laplacian is a family of operators that is supposed to interpolate between the ordinary Laplacian and the geodesic flow. It is essentially the weighted sum of a harmonic oscillator along the fiber of the tangent bundle, and of the generator of the geodesic flow. In this book, semisimple orbital integrals associated with the heat kernel of the Casimir operator are shown to be invariant under a suitable hypoelliptic deformation, which is constructed using the Dirac operator of Kostant. Their explicit evaluation is obtained by localization on geodesics in the symmetric space, in a formula closely related to the Atiyah-Bott fixed point formulas. Orbital integrals associated with the wave kernel are also computed. Estimates on the hypoelliptic heat kernel play a key role in the proofs, and are obtained by combining analytic, geometric, and probabilistic techniques. Analytic techniques emphasize the wavelike aspects of the hypoelliptic heat kernel, while geometrical considerations are needed to obtain proper control of the hypoelliptic heat kernel, especially in the localization process near the geodesics. Probabilistic techniques are especially relevant, because underlying the hypoelliptic deformation is a deformation of dynamical systems on the symmetric space, which interpolates between Brownian motion and the geodesic flow. The Malliavin calculus is used at critical stages of the proof.Less

Introduction to Symplectic Topology

Dusa McDuff and Dietmar Salamon

Over the past number of years powerful new methods in analysis and topology have led to the development of the modern global theory of symplectic topology, including several striking and important ... More

Over the past number of years powerful new methods in analysis and topology have led to the development of the modern global theory of symplectic topology, including several striking and important results. The first edition of Introduction to Symplectic Topology was published in 1995. The book was the first comprehensive introduction to the subject and became a key text in the area. In 1998, a significantly revised second edition contained new sections and updates. This third edition includes both further updates and new material on this fast-developing area. All chapters have been revised to improve the exposition, new material has been added in many places, and various proofs have been tightened up. Copious new references to key papers have been added to the bibliography. In particular, the material on contact geometry has been significantly expanded, many more details on linear complex structures and on the symplectic blowup and blowdown have been added, the section on J-holomorphic curves in Chapter 4 has been thoroughly revised, there are new sections on GIT and on the topology of symplectomorphism groups, and the section on Floer homology has been revised and updated. Chapter 13 has been completely rewritten and has a new title (Questions of Existence and Uniqueness). It now contains an introduction to existence and uniqueness problems in symplectic topology, a section describing various examples, an overview of Taubes–Seiberg–Witten theory and its applications to symplectic topology, and a section on symplectic 4-manifolds. Chapter 14 on open problems has been added.Less

An Invitation to Computational Homotopy

Graham Ellis

This book is an introduction to elementary algebraic topology for students with an interest in computers and computer programming. Its aim is to illustrate how the basics of the subject can be ... More

This book is an introduction to elementary algebraic topology for students with an interest in computers and computer programming. Its aim is to illustrate how the basics of the subject can be implemented on a computer. The transition from basic theory to practical computation raises a range of non-trivial algorithmic issues and it is hoped that the treatment of these will also appeal to readers already familiar with basic theory who are interested in developing computational aspects. The book covers a subset of standard introductory material on fundamental groups, covering spaces, homology, cohomology and classifying spaces as well as some less standard material on crossed modules, homotopy 2- types and explicit resolutions for an eclectic selection of discrete groups. It attempts to cover these topics in a way that hints at potential applications of topology in areas of computer science and engineering outside the usual territory of pure mathematics, and also in a way that demonstrates how computers can be used to perform explicit calculations within the domain of pure algebraic topology itself. The initial chapters include examples from data mining, biology and digital image analysis, while the later chapters cover a range of computational examples on the cohomology of classifying spaces that are likely beyond the reach of a purely paper-and-pen approach to the subject. The applied examples in the initial chapters use only low-dimensional and mainly abelian topological tools. Our applications of higher dimensional and less abelian computational methods are currently confined to pure mathematical calculations. The approach taken to computational homotopy is very much based on J.H.C. Whitehead’s theory of combinatorial homotopy in which he introduced the fundamental notions of CW-space, simple homotopy equivalence and crossed module. The book should serve as a self-contained informal introduction to these topics and their computer implementation. It is written in a style that tries to lead as quickly as possible to a range of potentially useful machine computations.Less

Lectures on Geometry

Edward Witten, Martin Bridson, Helmut Hofer, Marc Lackenby, and Rahul Pandharipande

N M J Woodhouse (ed.)

This volume contains a collection of papers based on lectures delivered by distinguished mathematicians at Clay Mathematics Institute events over the past few years. Although not explicitly linked, ... More

This volume contains a collection of papers based on lectures delivered by distinguished mathematicians at Clay Mathematics Institute events over the past few years. Although not explicitly linked, the topics in this volume have a common flavour and a common appeal to all who are interested in recent developments in geometry. They are intended to be accessible to all who work in this general area, regardless of their own particular research interests.Less

4-Manifolds

Selman Akbulut

This book present the topology of smooth 4-manifolds in an intuitive self-contained way. The handlebody theory, and the seiberg-witten theory of 4-manifolds are presented. Also stein and symplectic ... More

This book present the topology of smooth 4-manifolds in an intuitive self-contained way. The handlebody theory, and the seiberg-witten theory of 4-manifolds are presented. Also stein and symplectic structures on 4-manifolds are discussed, and many recent applications are given.Less

The Many Facets of Geometry: A Tribute to Nigel Hitchin

Oscar Garcia-Prada, Jean Pierre Bourguignon, and Simon Salamon (eds)

Few people have proved more influential in the field of differential and algebraic geometry, and in showing how this links with mathematical physics, than Nigel Hitchin. Oxford University's Savilian ... More

Few people have proved more influential in the field of differential and algebraic geometry, and in showing how this links with mathematical physics, than Nigel Hitchin. Oxford University's Savilian Professor of Geometry has made fundamental contributions in areas as diverse as: spin geometry, instanton and monopole equations, twistor theory, symplectic geometry of moduli spaces, integrables systems, Higgs bundles, Einstein metrics, hyperkähler geometry, Frobenius manifolds, Painlevé equations, special Lagrangian geometry and mirror symmetry, theory of grebes, and many more. He was previously Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, as well as Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick, is a Fellow of the Royal Society and has been the President of the London Mathematical Society. The chapters in this book, written by some of the greats in their fields (including four Fields Medalists), show how Hitchin's ideas have impacted on a wide variety of subjects. The book grew out of the Geometry Conference in Honour of Nigel Hitchin, held in Madrid.Less