This volume provides a detailed account of the theory of symplectic reduction by stages, along with numerous illustrations of the theory. It gives special emphasis to group extensions, including a detailed discussion of the Euclidean group, the oscillator group, the Bott-Virasoro group and other groups of matrices. The volume also provides ample background theory on symplectic reduction and cotangent bundle reduction.
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.
* Winner of the Ferran Sunyer i Balaguer Prize in 2000. * Reviews the necessary prerequisites, beginning with an introduction to Lie symmetries on Poisson and symplectic manifolds. * Currently in classroom use in Europe. * Can serve as a resource for graduate courses and seminars in Hamiltonian mechanics and symmetry, symplectic and Poisson geometry, Lie theory, mathematical physics, and as a comprehensive reference resource for researchers.
This monograph could be used for a graduate course on symplectic geometry as well as for independent study. The monograph starts with an introduction of symplectic vector spaces, followed by symplectic manifolds and then Hamiltonian group actions and the Darboux theorem. After discussing moment maps and orbits of the coadjoint action, symplectic quotients are studied. The convexity theorem and toric manifolds come next and we give a comprehensive treatment of Equivariant cohomology. The monograph also contains detailed treatment of the Duistermaat-Heckman Theorem, geometric quantization, and flat connections on 2-manifolds. Finally, there is an appendix which provides background material on Lie groups. A course on differential topology is an essential prerequisite for this course. Some of the later material will be more accessible to readers who have had a basic course on algebraic topology. For some of the later chapters, it would be helpful to have some background on representation theory and complex geometry.
Among all the Hamiltonian systems, the integrable ones have special geometric properties; in particular, their solutions are very regular and quasi-periodic. This book serves as an introduction to symplectic and contact geometry for graduate students, exploring the underlying geometry of integrable Hamiltonian systems. Includes exercises designed to complement the expositiont, and up-to-date references.
This booklet studies the geometry of the reduction of Lagrangian systems with symmetry in a way that allows the reduction process to be repeated; that is, it develops a context for Lagrangian reduction by stages. The Lagrangian reduction procedure focuses on the geometry of variational structures and how to reduce them to quotient spaces under group actions. This philosophy is well known for the classical cases, such as Routh reduction for systems with cyclic variables (where the symmetry group is Abelian) and Euler-Poincare reduction (for the case in which the configuration space is a Lie group) as well as Euler-Poincare reduction for semidirect products.
These notes are based on a course entitled ``Symplectic Geometry and Geometric Quantization'' taught by Alan Weinstein at the University of California, Berkeley (fall 1992) and at the Centre Emile Borel (spring 1994). The only prerequisite for the course needed is a knowledge of the basic notions from the theory of differentiable manifolds (differential forms, vector fields, transversality, etc.). The aim is to give students an introduction to the ideas of microlocal analysis and the related symplectic geometry, with an emphasis on the role these ideas play in formalizing the transition between the mathematics of classical dynamics (hamiltonian flows on symplectic manifolds) and quantum mechanics (unitary flows on Hilbert spaces). These notes are meant to function as a guide to the literature. The authors refer to other sources for many details that are omitted and can be bypassed on a first reading.
This is the first exposition of the quantization theory of singular symplectic (Marsden-Weinstein) quotients and their applications to physics. The reader will acquire an introduction to the various techniques used in this area, as well as an overview of the latest research approaches. These involve classical differential and algebraic geometry, as well as operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. Thus one will be amply prepared to follow future developments in this field.
This book gives a modern differential geometric treatment of linearly nonholonomically constrained systems. It discusses in detail what is meant by symmetry of such a system and gives a general theory of how to reduce such a symmetry using the concept of a differential space and the almost Poisson bracket structure of its algebra of smooth functions. The above theory is applied to the concrete example of Carathodory's sleigh and the convex rolling rigid body. The qualitative behavior of the motion of the rolling disk is treated exhaustively and in detail. In particular, it classifies all motions of the disk, including those where the disk falls flat and those where it nearly falls flat. The geometric techniques described in this book for symmetry reduction have not appeared in any book before. Nor has the detailed description of the motion of the rolling disk. In this respect, the authors are trail-blazers in their respective fields.
