This memoir develops the spectral theory of the Lax operators of nonlinear Schrödinger-like partial differential equations with periodic boundary conditions. Their special curves, i.e., the common spectrum with the periodic shifts, are generically Riemann surfaces of infinite genus. The points corresponding to infinite energy are added. The resulting spaces are no longer Riemann surfaces in the usual sense, but they are quite similar to compact Riemann surfaces.

In this book, the authors geometrically construct Riemann surfaces of infinite genus by pasting together plane domains and handles. To achieve a meaningful generalization of the classical theory of Riemann surfaces to the case of infinite genus, one must impose restrictions on the asymptotic behavior of the Riemann surface. In the construction carried out here, these restrictions are formulated in terms of the sizes and locations of the handles and in terms of the gluing maps. The approach used has two main attractions. The first is that much of the classical theory of Riemann surfaces, including the Torelli theorem, can be generalized to this class. The second is that solutions of Kadomcev-Petviashvilli equations can be expressed in terms of theta functions associated with Riemann surfaces of infinite genus constructed in the book. Both of these are developed here. The authors also present in detail a number of important examples of Riemann surfaces of infinite genus (hyperelliptic surfaces of infinite genus, heat surfaces and Fermi surfaces). The book is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in analysis and integrable systems.

In this paper we develop a concrete description of connections on principal bundles, possibly non-trivial, over compact surfaces and use this description to construct the Yang-Mills measure which underlies the Euclidean quantum theory of gauge fields, involving compact gauge groups, on compact connected two-dimensional Riemannian manifolds (possibly with boundary). Using this measure we compute expectation values of important random variables, the Wilson loops variables, corresponding to a broad class of configurations of loops on the surface.

This memoir provides a detailed study of the effect of non power-like irregularities of (the geometry of) the fractal boundary on the spectrum of "fractal drums" (and especially of "fractal strings"). In this work, the authors extend previous results in this area by using the notionof generalized Minkowski content which is defined through some suitable "gauge functions" other than power functions. (This content is used to measure the irregularity (or "fractality") of the boundary of an open set in R]n by evaluating the volume of its small tubular neighborhoods). In the situation when the power function is not the natural "gauge function", this enables the authors to obtain more precise estimates, with a broader potential range of applications than in previous papers of the second author and his collaborators. This text will also be of interest to those working in mathematical physics.

In this book, the author studies the Dirichlet series whose coefficients are the number of orders of a quartic field with given indices. Nakagawa gives an explicit expression of the Dirichlet series. Using this expression, its analytic properties are deduced. He also presents an asymptotic formula for the number of orders in a quartic field with index less than a given positive number.