Now more that a quarter of a century old, intersection homology theory has proven to be a powerful tool in the study of the topology of singular spaces, with deep links to many other areas of mathematics, including combinatorics, differential equations, group representations, and number theory. Like its predecessor, An Introduction to Intersection Homology Theory, Second Edition introduces the power and beauty of intersection homology, explaining the main ideas and omitting, or merely sketching, the difficult proofs. It treats both the basics of the subject and a wide range of applications, providing lucid overviews of highly technical areas that make the subject accessible and prepare readers for more advanced work in the area. This second edition contains entirely new chapters introducing the theory of Witt spaces, perverse sheaves, and the combinatorial intersection cohomology of fans. Intersection homology is a large and growing subject that touches on many aspects of topology, geometry, and algebra. With its clear explanations of the main ideas, this book builds the confidence needed to tackle more specialist, technical texts and provides a framework within which to place them.

This textbook provides a gentle introduction to intersection homology and perverse sheaves, where concrete examples and geometric applications motivate concepts throughout. By giving a taste of the main ideas in the field, the author welcomes new readers to this exciting area at the crossroads of topology, algebraic geometry, analysis, and differential equations. Those looking to delve further into the abstract theory will find ample references to facilitate navigation of both classic and recent literature. Beginning with an introduction to intersection homology from a geometric and topological viewpoint, the text goes on to develop the sheaf-theoretical perspective. Then algebraic geometry comes to the fore: a brief discussion of constructibility opens onto an in-depth exploration of perverse sheaves. Highlights from the following chapters include a detailed account of the proof of the Beilinson–Bernstein–Deligne–Gabber (BBDG) decomposition theorem, applications of perverse sheaves to hypersurface singularities, and a discussion of Hodge-theoretic aspects of intersection homology via Saito’s deep theory of mixed Hodge modules. An epilogue offers a succinct summary of the literature surrounding some recent applications. Intersection Homology & Perverse Sheaves is suitable for graduate students with a basic background in topology and algebraic geometry. By building context and familiarity with examples, the text offers an ideal starting point for those entering the field. This classroom-tested approach opens the door to further study and to current research.

This book is a publication in Swiss Seminars, a subseries of Progress in Mathematics. It is an expanded version of the notes from a seminar on intersection cohomology theory, which met at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in the spring of 1983. This volume supplies an introduction to the piecewise linear and sheaf-theoretic versions of that theory as developed by M. Goresky and R. MacPherson in Topology 19 (1980), and in Inventiones Mathematicae 72 (1983). Some familiarity with algebraic topology and sheaf theory is assumed.

The first expository book-length introduction to intersection homology from the viewpoint of singular and piecewise linear chains.

The last ten years have seen a number of significant advances in Hopf algebras. The best known is the introduction of quantum groups, which are Hopf algebras that arose in mathematical physics and now have connections to many areas of mathematics. In addition, several conjectures of Kaplansky have been solved, the most striking of which is a kind of Lagrange's theorem for Hopf algebras. Work on actions of Hopf algebras has unified earlier results on group actions, actions of Lie algebras, and graded algebras. This book brings together many of these recent developments from the viewpoint of the algebraic structure of Hopf algebras and their actions and coactions. Quantum groups are treated as an important example, rather than as an end in themselves. The two introductory chapters review definitions and basic facts; otherwise, most of the material has not previously appeared in book form. Providing an accessible introduction to Hopf algebras, this book would make an excellent graduate textbook for a course in Hopf algebras or an introduction to quantum groups.

Let X be a pseudomanifold. In this text, the authors use a simplicial blow-up to define a cochain complex whose cohomology with coefficients in a field, is isomorphic to the intersection cohomology of X, introduced by M. Goresky and R. MacPherson. The authors do it simplicially in the setting of a filtered version of face sets, also called simplicial sets without degeneracies, in the sense of C. P. Rourke and B. J. Sanderson. They define perverse local systems over filtered face sets and intersection cohomology with coefficients in a perverse local system. In particular, as announced above when X is a pseudomanifold, the authors get a perverse local system of cochains quasi-isomorphic to the intersection cochains of Goresky and MacPherson, over a field. We show also that these two complexes of cochains are quasi-isomorphic to a filtered version of Sullivan's differential forms over the field Q. In a second step, they use these forms to extend Sullivan's presentation of rational homotopy type to intersection cohomology.