Based on lectures presented at Pennsylvania State University in February 1987, this work begins with the notions of manifold and smooth structures and the Gauss-Bonnet theorem, and proceeds to the topology and geometry of foliated 3-manifolds. It also explains why four-dimensional space has special attributes.
This book introduces the field of topology, a branch of mathematics that explores the properties of geometric space, with a focus on low-dimensional systems. The authors discuss applications in various areas of physics. The first chapters of the book cover the formal aspects of topology, including classes, homotopic groups, metric spaces, and Riemannian and pseudo-Riemannian geometry. These topics are essential for understanding the theoretical concepts and notations used in the next chapters of the book. The applications encompass defects in crystalline structures, space topology, spin statistics, Braid group, Chern-Simons field theory, and 3D gravity, among others. This self-contained book provides all the necessary additional material for both physics and mathematics students. The presentation is enriched with examples and exercises, making it accessible for readers to grasp the concepts with ease. The authors adopt a pedagogical approach, posing many unsolved questions in simple situations that can serve as challenging projects for students. Suitable for a one-semester postgraduate level course, this text is ideal for teaching purposes.
In this volume, which is dedicated to H. Seifert, are papers based on talks given at the Isle of Thorns conference on low dimensional topology held in 1982.
Low-dimensional topology has long been a fertile area for the interaction of many different disciplines of mathematics, including differential geometry, hyperbolic geometry, combinatorics, representation theory, global analysis, classical mechanics, and theoretical physics. The Park City Mathematics Institute summer school in 2006 explored in depth the most exciting recent aspects of this interaction, aimed at a broad audience of both graduate students and researchers. The present volume is based on lectures presented at the summer school on low-dimensional topology. These notes give fresh, concise, and high-level introductions to these developments, often with new arguments not found elsewhere. The volume will be of use both to graduate students seeking to enter the field of low-dimensional topology and to senior researchers wishing to keep up with current developments. The volume begins with notes based on a special lecture by John Milnor about the history of the topology of manifolds. It also contains notes from lectures by Cameron Gordon on the basics of three-manifold topology and surgery problems, Mikhail Khovanov on his homological invariants for knots, John Etnyre on contact geometry, Ron Fintushel and Ron Stern on constructions of exotic four-manifolds, David Gabai on the hyperbolic geometry and the ending lamination theorem, Zoltan Szabo on Heegaard Floer homology for knots and three manifolds, and John Morgan on Hamilton's and Perelman's work on Ricci flow and geometrization.
This book consists of a selection of articles devoted to new ideas and developments in low dimensional topology. Low dimensions refer to dimensions three and four for the topology of manifolds and their submanifolds. Thus we have papers related to both manifolds and to knotted submanifolds of dimension one in three (classical knot theory) and two in four (surfaces in four dimensional spaces). Some of the work involves virtual knot theory where the knots are abstractions of classical knots but can be represented by knots embedded in surfaces. This leads both to new interactions with classical topology and to new interactions with essential combinatorics.
Every eight years since 1961, the University of Georgia has hosted a major international topology conference aimed at disseminating important recent results and bringing together researchers at different stages of their careers. This volume contains the proceedings of the 2009 conference, which includes survey and research articles concerning such areas as knot theory, contact and symplectic topology, 3-manifold theory, geometric group theory, and equivariant topology. Among other highlights of the volume, a survey article by Stefan Friedl and Stefano Vidussi provides an accessible treatment of their important proof of Taubes' conjecture on symplectic structures on the product of a 3-manifold and a circle, and an intriguing short article by Dennis Sullivan opens the door to the use of modern algebraic-topological techniques in the study of finite-dimensional models of famously difficult problems in fluid dynamics. Continuing what has become a tradition, this volume contains a report on a problem session held at the conference, discussing a variety of open problems in geometric topology.
Volume 2 is divided into three parts: the first 'Surfaces' contains an article by Thurston on earthquakes and by Penner on traintracks. The second part is entitled 'Knots and 3-Manifolds' and the final part 'Kleinian Groups'.
This book contains contributions on some of the most important and current topics on the physics of low dimensional systems. The main emphasis is on the magnetic properties of surfaces, thin films, and atomic clusters. State-of-the-art techniques are discussed in detail. Techniques for the production and measurement of nanostructures are discussed, and pioneering contributions on the effect on health of these particles are presented. Important studies on semiconductor nanostructures are addressed as well as aerosol systems.
