The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-Manifolds. (MN-44), Volume 44
The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-Manifolds. (MN-44), Volume 44

Author: John W. Morgan

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-09-08

Total Pages: 138

ISBN-13: 1400865166

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The recent introduction of the Seiberg-Witten invariants of smooth four-manifolds has revolutionized the study of those manifolds. The invariants are gauge-theoretic in nature and are close cousins of the much-studied SU(2)-invariants defined over fifteen years ago by Donaldson. On a practical level, the new invariants have proved to be more powerful and have led to a vast generalization of earlier results. This book is an introduction to the Seiberg-Witten invariants. The work begins with a review of the classical material on Spin c structures and their associated Dirac operators. Next comes a discussion of the Seiberg-Witten equations, which is set in the context of nonlinear elliptic operators on an appropriate infinite dimensional space of configurations. It is demonstrated that the space of solutions to these equations, called the Seiberg-Witten moduli space, is finite dimensional, and its dimension is then computed. In contrast to the SU(2)-case, the Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces are shown to be compact. The Seiberg-Witten invariant is then essentially the homology class in the space of configurations represented by the Seiberg-Witten moduli space. The last chapter gives a flavor for the applications of these new invariants by computing the invariants for most Kahler surfaces and then deriving some basic toological consequences for these surfaces.

Notes on Seiberg-Witten Theory
Notes on Seiberg-Witten Theory

Author: Liviu I. Nicolaescu

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 504

ISBN-13: 0821821458

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After background on elliptic equations, Clifford algebras, Dirac operators, and Fredholm theory, chapters introduce solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations and the group of gauge transformations, then look at algebraic surfaces. A final chapter presents in great detail a cut-and-paste technique for computing Seiberg-Witten invariants, covering elliptic equations on manifolds with cylindrical ends, finite energy monopoles on cylindrical manifolds, local and global properties of the moduli spaces of finite energy monopoles, and the process of reconstructing the space of monopoles on a 4-manifold decomposed into several parts by a hypersurface. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Lectures on Symplectic Geometry
Lectures on Symplectic Geometry

Author: Ana Cannas da Silva

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2004-10-27

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 354045330X

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The goal of these notes is to provide a fast introduction to symplectic geometry for graduate students with some knowledge of differential geometry, de Rham theory and classical Lie groups. This text addresses symplectomorphisms, local forms, contact manifolds, compatible almost complex structures, Kaehler manifolds, hamiltonian mechanics, moment maps, symplectic reduction and symplectic toric manifolds. It contains guided problems, called homework, designed to complement the exposition or extend the reader's understanding. There are by now excellent references on symplectic geometry, a subset of which is in the bibliography of this book. However, the most efficient introduction to a subject is often a short elementary treatment, and these notes attempt to serve that purpose. This text provides a taste of areas of current research and will prepare the reader to explore recent papers and extensive books on symplectic geometry where the pace is much faster. For this reprint numerous corrections and clarifications have been made, and the layout has been improved.

Contact and Symplectic Topology
Contact and Symplectic Topology

Author: Frédéric Bourgeois

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2014-03-10

Total Pages: 538

ISBN-13: 3319020366

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Symplectic and contact geometry naturally emerged from the mathematical description of classical physics. The discovery of new rigidity phenomena and properties satisfied by these geometric structures launched a new research field worldwide. The intense activity of many European research groups in this field is reflected by the ESF Research Networking Programme "Contact And Symplectic Topology" (CAST). The lectures of the Summer School in Nantes (June 2011) and of the CAST Summer School in Budapest (July 2012) provide a nice panorama of many aspects of the present status of contact and symplectic topology. The notes of the minicourses offer a gentle introduction to topics which have developed in an amazing speed in the recent past. These topics include 3-dimensional and higher dimensional contact topology, Fukaya categories, asymptotically holomorphic methods in contact topology, bordered Floer homology, embedded contact homology, and flexibility results for Stein manifolds.

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds
The Wild World of 4-Manifolds

Author: Alexandru Scorpan

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 2005-05-10

Total Pages: 642

ISBN-13: 0821837494

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What a wonderful book! I strongly recommend this book to anyone, especially graduate students, interested in getting a sense of 4-manifolds. --MAA Reviews The book gives an excellent overview of 4-manifolds, with many figures and historical notes. Graduate students, nonexperts, and experts alike will enjoy browsing through it. -- Robion C. Kirby, University of California, Berkeley This book offers a panorama of the topology of simply connected smooth manifolds of dimension four. Dimension four is unlike any other dimension; it is large enough to have room for wild things to happen, but small enough so that there is no room to undo the wildness. For example, only manifolds of dimension four can exhibit infinitely many distinct smooth structures. Indeed, their topology remains the least understood today. To put things in context, the book starts with a survey of higher dimensions and of topological 4-manifolds. In the second part, the main invariant of a 4-manifold--the intersection form--and its interaction with the topology of the manifold are investigated. In the third part, as an important source of examples, complex surfaces are reviewed. In the final fourth part of the book, gauge theory is presented; this differential-geometric method has brought to light how unwieldy smooth 4-manifolds truly are, and while bringing new insights, has raised more questions than answers. The structure of the book is modular, organized into a main track of about two hundred pages, augmented by extensive notes at the end of each chapter, where many extra details, proofs and developments are presented. To help the reader, the text is peppered with over 250 illustrations and has an extensive index.

Holomorphic Curves in Low Dimensions
Holomorphic Curves in Low Dimensions

Author: Chris Wendl

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-28

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 3319913719

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This monograph provides an accessible introduction to the applications of pseudoholomorphic curves in symplectic and contact geometry, with emphasis on dimensions four and three. The first half of the book focuses on McDuff's characterization of symplectic rational and ruled surfaces, one of the classic early applications of holomorphic curve theory. The proof presented here uses the language of Lefschetz fibrations and pencils, thus it includes some background on these topics, in addition to a survey of the required analytical results on holomorphic curves. Emphasizing applications rather than technical results, the analytical survey mostly refers to other sources for proofs, while aiming to provide precise statements that are widely applicable, plus some informal discussion of the analytical ideas behind them. The second half of the book then extends this program in two complementary directions: (1) a gentle introduction to Gromov-Witten theory and complete proof of the classification of uniruled symplectic 4-manifolds; and (2) a survey of punctured holomorphic curves and their applications to questions from 3-dimensional contact topology, such as classifying the symplectic fillings of planar contact manifolds. This book will be particularly useful to graduate students and researchers who have basic literacy in symplectic geometry and algebraic topology, and would like to learn how to apply standard techniques from holomorphic curve theory without dwelling more than necessary on the analytical details. This book is also part of the Virtual Series on Symplectic Geometry http://www.springer.com/series/16019

Floer Homology, Gauge Theory, and Low-Dimensional Topology
Floer Homology, Gauge Theory, and Low-Dimensional Topology

Author: Clay Mathematics Institute. Summer School

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 9780821838457

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Mathematical gauge theory studies connections on principal bundles, or, more precisely, the solution spaces of certain partial differential equations for such connections. Historically, these equations have come from mathematical physics, and play an important role in the description of the electro-weak and strong nuclear forces. The use of gauge theory as a tool for studying topological properties of four-manifolds was pioneered by the fundamental work of Simon Donaldson in theearly 1980s, and was revolutionized by the introduction of the Seiberg-Witten equations in the mid-1990s. Since the birth of the subject, it has retained its close connection with symplectic topology. The analogy between these two fields of study was further underscored by Andreas Floer's constructionof an infinite-dimensional variant of Morse theory that applies in two a priori different contexts: either to define symplectic invariants for pairs of Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold, or to define topological This volume is based on lecture courses and advanced seminars given at the 2004 Clay Mathematics Institute Summer School at the Alfred Renyi Institute of Mathematics in Budapest, Hungary. Several of the authors have added a considerable amount of additional material tothat presented at the school, and the resulting volume provides a state-of-the-art introduction to current research, covering material from Heegaard Floer homology, contact geometry, smooth four-manifold topology, and symplectic four-manifolds. Information for our distributors: Titles in this seriesare copublished with the Clay Mathematics Institute (Cambridge, MA).

$J$-Holomorphic Curves and Quantum Cohomology
$J$-Holomorphic Curves and Quantum Cohomology

Author: Dusa McDuff

Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0821803328

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J -holomorphic curves revolutionized the study of symplectic geometry when Gromov first introduced them in 1985. Through quantum cohomology, these curves are now linked to many of the most exciting new ideas in mathematical physics. This book presents the first coherent and full account of the theory of J -holomorphic curves, the details of which are presently scattered in various research papers. The first half of the book is an expository account of the field, explaining the main technical aspects. McDuff and Salamon give complete proofs of Gromov's compactness theorem for spheres and of the existence of the Gromov-Witten invariants. The second half of the book focuses on the definition of quantum cohomology. The authors establish that the quantum multiplication exists and is associative on appropriate manifolds. They then describe the Givental-Kim calculation of the quantum cohomology of flag manifolds, leading to quantum Chern classes and Witten's calculation for Grassmanians, which relates to the Verlinde algebra. The Dubrovin connection, Gromov-Witten potential on quantum cohomology, and curve counting formulas are also discussed.