Develops the mathematical background and recent results on the Inverse Galois Problem.

Assuming little technical background, the author presents the strong analogies between these two concepts starting at an elementary level.

This volume is the offspring of a week-long workshop on "Galois groups over Q and related topics," which was held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute during the week March 23-27, 1987. The organizing committee consisted of Kenneth Ribet (chairman), Yasutaka Ihara, and Jean-Pierre Serre. The conference focused on three principal themes: 1. Extensions of Q with finite simple Galois groups. 2. Galois actions on fundamental groups, nilpotent extensions of Q arising from Fermat curves, and the interplay between Gauss sums and cyclotomic units. 3. Representations of Gal(Q/Q) with values in GL(2)j deformations and connections with modular forms. Here is a summary of the conference program: • G. Anderson: "Gauss sums, circular units and the simplex" • G. Anderson and Y. Ihara: "Galois actions on 11"1 ( ••• ) and higher circular units" • D. Blasius: "Maass forms and Galois representations" • P. Deligne: "Galois action on 1I"1(P-{0, 1, oo}) and Hodge analogue" • W. Feit: "Some Galois groups over number fields" • Y. Ihara: "Arithmetic aspect of Galois actions on 1I"1(P - {O, 1, oo})" - survey talk • U. Jannsen: "Galois cohomology of i-adic representations" • B. Matzat: - "Rationality criteria for Galois extensions" - "How to construct polynomials with Galois group Mll over Q" • B. Mazur: "Deforming GL(2) Galois representations" • K. Ribet: "Lowering the level of modular representations of Gal( Q/ Q)" • J-P. Serre: - Introductory Lecture - "Degree 2 modular representations of Gal(Q/Q)" • J.

Helmut Koch's classic is now available in English. Competently translated by Franz Lemmermeyer, it introduces the theory of pro-p groups and their cohomology. The book contains a postscript on the recent development of the field written by H. Koch and F. Lemmermeyer, along with many additional recent references.

Foundations of Galois Theory is an introduction to group theory, field theory, and the basic concepts of abstract algebra. The text is divided into two parts. Part I presents the elements of Galois Theory, in which chapters are devoted to the presentation of the elements of field theory, facts from the theory of groups, and the applications of Galois Theory. Part II focuses on the development of general Galois Theory and its use in the solution of equations by radicals. Equations that are solvable by radicals; the construction of equations solvable by radicals; and the unsolvability by radicals of the general equation of degree n ? 5 are discussed as well. Mathematicians, physicists, researchers, and students of mathematics will find this book highly useful.

This self-contained book serves both as an introduction to profinite groups and as a reference for specialists in some areas of the theory. It contains complete and clear proofs for most results, many of which appear here in book form for the first time. Suitable as a basis for courses.

This volume is an outgrowth of the research project "The Inverse Ga lois Problem and its Application to Number Theory" which was carried out in three academic years from 1999 to 2001 with the support of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (1) No. 11440013. In September, 2001, an international conference "Galois Theory and Modular Forms" was held at Tokyo Metropolitan University after some preparatory work shops and symposia in previous years. The title of this book came from that of the conference, and the authors were participants of those meet All of the articles here were critically refereed by experts. Some of ings. these articles give well prepared surveys on branches of research areas, and many articles aim to bear the latest research results accompanied with carefully written expository introductions. When we started our re~earch project, we picked up three areas to investigate under the key word "Galois groups"; namely, "generic poly nomials" to be applied to number theory, "Galois coverings of algebraic curves" to study new type of representations of absolute Galois groups, and explicitly described "Shimura varieties" to understand well the Ga lois structures of some interesting polynomials including Brumer's sextic for the alternating group of degree 5. The topics of the articles in this volume are widely spread as a result. At a first glance, some readers may think this book somewhat unfocussed.