The book introduces the basic notions in Symplectic and Contact Geometry at the level of the second year graduate student. It also contains many exercises, some of which are solved only in the last chapter.We begin with the linear theory, then give the definition of symplectic manifolds and some basic examples, review advanced calculus, discuss Hamiltonian systems, tour rapidly group and the basics of contact geometry, and solve problems in chapter 8. The material just described can be used as a one semester course on Symplectic and Contact Geometry.The book contains also more advanced material, suitable to advanced graduate students and researchers.
Symplectic geometry is a central topic of current research in mathematics. Indeed, symplectic methods are key ingredients in the study of dynamical systems, differential equations, algebraic geometry, topology, mathematical physics and representations of Lie groups. This book is a true introduction to symplectic geometry, assuming only a general background in analysis and familiarity with linear algebra. It starts with the basics of the geometry of symplectic vector spaces. Then, symplectic manifolds are defined and explored. In addition to the essential classic results, such as Darboux's theorem, more recent results and ideas are also included here, such as symplectic capacity and pseudoholomorphic curves. These ideas have revolutionized the subject. The main examples of symplectic manifolds are given, including the cotangent bundle, Kähler manifolds, and coadjoint orbits. Further principal ideas are carefully examined, such as Hamiltonian vector fields, the Poisson bracket, and connections with contact manifolds. Berndt describes some of the close connections between symplectic geometry and mathematical physics in the last two chapters of the book. In particular, the moment map is defined and explored, both mathematically and in its relation to physics. He also introduces symplectic reduction, which is an important tool for reducing the number of variables in a physical system and for constructing new symplectic manifolds from old. The final chapter is on quantization, which uses symplectic methods to take classical mechanics to quantum mechanics. This section includes a discussion of the Heisenberg group and the Weil (or metaplectic) representation of the symplectic group. Several appendices provide background material on vector bundles, on cohomology, and on Lie groups and Lie algebras and their representations. Berndt's presentation of symplectic geometry is a clear and concise introduction to the major methods and applications of the subject, and requires only a minimum of prerequisites. This book would be an excellent text for a graduate course or as a source for anyone who wishes to learn about symplectic geometry.
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.
Over the last 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. A significantly revised second edition was published in 1998 introducing new sections and updates on the fast-developing area. This new third edition includes updates and new material to bring the book right up-to-date.
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.
This book highlights a number of recent research advances in the field of symplectic and contact geometry and topology, and related areas in low-dimensional topology. This field has experienced significant and exciting growth in the past few decades, and this volume provides an accessible introduction into many active research problems in this area. The papers were written with a broad audience in mind so as to reach a wide range of mathematicians at various levels. Aside from teaching readers about developing research areas, this book will inspire researchers to ask further questions to continue to advance the field. The volume contains both original results and survey articles, presenting the results of collaborative research on a wide range of topics. These projects began at the Research Collaboration Conference for Women in Symplectic and Contact Geometry and Topology (WiSCon) in July 2019 at ICERM, Brown University. Each group of authors included female and nonbinary mathematicians at different career levels in mathematics and with varying areas of expertise. This paved the way for new connections between mathematicians at all career levels, spanning multiple continents, and resulted in the new collaborations and directions that are featured in this work.
This introductory book offers a unique and unified overview of symplectic geometry, highlighting the differential properties of symplectic manifolds. It consists of six chapters: Some Algebra Basics, Symplectic Manifolds, Cotangent Bundles, Symplectic G-spaces, Poisson Manifolds, and A Graded Case, concluding with a discussion of the differential properties of graded symplectic manifolds of dimensions (0,n). It is a useful reference resource for students and researchers interested in geometry, group theory, analysis and differential equations.This book is also inspiring in the emerging field of Geometric Science of Information, in particular the chapter on Symplectic G-spaces, where Jean-Louis Koszul develops Jean-Marie Souriau's tools related to the non-equivariant case of co-adjoint action on Souriau’s moment map through Souriau’s Cocycle, opening the door to Lie Group Machine Learning with Souriau-Fisher metric.
This is a research monograph covering the majority of known results on the problem of constructing compact symplectic manifolds with no Kaehler structure with an emphasis on the use of rational homotopy theory. In recent years, some new and stimulating conjectures and problems have been formulated due to an influx of homotopical ideas. Examples include the Lupton-Oprea conjecture, the Benson-Gordon conjecture, both of which are in the spirit of some older and still unsolved problems (e.g. Thurston's conjecture and Sullivan's problem). Our explicit aim is to clarify the interrelations between certain aspects of symplectic geometry and homotopy theory in the framework of the problems mentioned above. We expect that the reader is aware of the basics of differential geometry and algebraic topology at graduate level.
