This book describes the interaction between several key aspects of Galois theory based on Iwasawa theory, fundamental groups and automorphic forms. These ideas encompass a large portion of mainstream number theory and ramifications that are of interest to graduate students and researchers in number theory, algebraic geometry, topology and physics.

Displays the intricate interplay between different foundations of non-commutative number theory.

Celebrating one of the leading figures in contemporary number theory – John H. Coates – on the occasion of his 70th birthday, this collection of contributions covers a range of topics in number theory, concentrating on the arithmetic of elliptic curves, modular forms, and Galois representations. Several of the contributions in this volume were presented at the conference Elliptic Curves, Modular Forms and Iwasawa Theory, held in honour of the 70th birthday of John Coates in Cambridge, March 25-27, 2015. The main unifying theme is Iwasawa theory, a field that John Coates himself has done much to create. This collection is indispensable reading for researchers in Iwasawa theory, and is interesting and valuable for those in many related fields.

This is the fifth conference in a bi-annual series, following conferences in Besancon, Limoges, Irsee and Toronto. The meeting aims to bring together different strands of research in and closely related to the area of Iwasawa theory. During the week before the conference in a kind of summer school a series of preparatory lectures for young mathematicians was provided as an introduction to Iwasawa theory. Iwasawa theory is a modern and powerful branch of number theory and can be traced back to the Japanese mathematician Kenkichi Iwasawa, who introduced the systematic study of Z_p-extensions and p-adic L-functions, concentrating on the case of ideal class groups. Later this would be generalized to elliptic curves. Over the last few decades considerable progress has been made in automorphic Iwasawa theory, e.g. the proof of the Main Conjecture for GL(2) by Kato and Skinner & Urban. Techniques such as Hida’s theory of p-adic modular forms and big Galois representations play a crucial part. Also a noncommutative Iwasawa theory of arbitrary p-adic Lie extensions has been developed. This volume aims to present a snapshot of the state of art of Iwasawa theory as of 2012. In particular it offers an introduction to Iwasawa theory (based on a preparatory course by Chris Wuthrich) and a survey of the proof of Skinner & Urban (based on a lecture course by Xin Wan).

The section conjecture in anabelian geometry, announced by Grothendieck in 1983, is concerned with a description of the set of rational points of a hyperbolic algebraic curve over a number field in terms of the arithmetic of its fundamental group. While the conjecture is still open today in 2012, its study has revealed interesting arithmetic for curves and opened connections, for example, to the question whether the Brauer-Manin obstruction is the only one against rational points on curves. This monograph begins by laying the foundations for the space of sections of the fundamental group extension of an algebraic variety. Then, arithmetic assumptions on the base field are imposed and the local-to-global approach is studied in detail. The monograph concludes by discussing analogues of the section conjecture created by varying the base field or the type of variety, or by using a characteristic quotient or its birational analogue in lieu of the fundamental group extension.

Covering, arguably, one of the most attractive and mysterious mathematical objects, the Monster group, this text strives to provide an insightful introduction and the discusses the current state of the field. The Monster group is related to many areas of mathematics, as well as physics, from number theory to string theory. This book cuts through the complex nature of the field, highlighting some of the mysteries and intricate relationships involved. Containing many meaningful examples and a manual introduction to the computer package GAP, it provides the opportunity and resources for readers to start their own calculations. Some 20 experts here share their expertise spanning this exciting field, and the resulting volume is ideal for researchers and graduate students working in Combinatorial Algebra, Group theory and related areas.

This study of graded rings includes the first systematic account of the graded Grothendieck group, a powerful and crucial invariant in algebra which has recently been adopted to classify the Leavitt path algebras. The book begins with a concise introduction to the theory of graded rings and then focuses in more detail on Grothendieck groups, Morita theory, Picard groups and K-theory. The author extends known results in the ungraded case to the graded setting and gathers together important results which are currently scattered throughout the literature. The book is suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, as well as researchers in ring theory.