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 volume is a collection of articles by speakers at the Poisson 2006 conference. The program for Poisson 2006 was an overlap of topics that included deformation quantization, generalized complex structures, differentiable stacks, normal forms, and group-valued moment maps and reduction.

The material and references in this extended second edition of "The Topology of Torus Actions on Symplectic Manifolds", published as Volume 93 in this series in 1991, have been updated. Symplectic manifolds and torus actions are investigated, with numerous examples of torus actions, for instance on some moduli spaces. Although the book is still centered on convexity results, it contains much more material, in particular lots of new examples and exercises.

This volume, based on lectures and short communications at a summer school in Villa de Leyva, Colombia (July 2005), offers an introduction to some recent developments in several active topics at the interface between geometry, topology and quantum field theory. It is aimed at graduate students in physics or mathematics who might want insight in the following topics (covered in five survey lectures): Anomalies and noncommutative geometry, Deformation quantisation and Poisson algebras, Topological quantum field theory and orbifolds. These lectures are followed by nine articles on various topics at the borderline of mathematics and physics ranging from quasicrystals to invariant instantons through black holes, and involving a number of mathematical tools borrowed from geometry, algebra and analysis.

In the last decade, the development of new ideas in quantum theory, including geometric and deformation quantization, the non-Abelian Berry''s geometric factor, super- and BRST symmetries, non-commutativity, has called into play the geometric techniques based on the deep interplay between algebra, differential geometry and topology. The book aims at being a guide to advanced differential geometric and topological methods in quantum mechanics. Their main peculiarity lies in the fact that geometry in quantum theory speaks mainly the algebraic language of rings, modules, sheaves and categories. Geometry is by no means the primary scope of the book, but it underlies many ideas in modern quantum physics and provides the most advanced schemes of quantization.

* The invited papers in this volume are written in honor of Alan Weinstein, one of the world’s foremost geometers * Contributions cover a broad range of topics in symplectic and differential geometry, Lie theory, mechanics, and related fields * Intended for graduate students and working mathematicians, this text is a distillation of prominent research and an indication of future trends in geometry, mechanics, and mathematical physics