This is the first introductory book on multiple zeta functions and multiple polylogarithms which are the generalizations of the Riemann zeta function and the classical polylogarithms, respectively, to the multiple variable setting. It contains all the basic concepts and the important properties of these functions and their special values. This book is aimed at graduate students, mathematicians and physicists who are interested in this current active area of research.The book will provide a detailed and comprehensive introduction to these objects, their fascinating properties and interesting relations to other mathematical subjects, and various generalizations such as their q-analogs and their finite versions (by taking partial sums modulo suitable prime powers). Historical notes and exercises are provided at the end of each chapter.

Two major subjects are treated in this book. The main one is the theory of Bernoulli numbers and the other is the theory of zeta functions. Historically, Bernoulli numbers were introduced to give formulas for the sums of powers of consecutive integers. The real reason that they are indispensable for number theory, however, lies in the fact that special values of the Riemann zeta function can be written by using Bernoulli numbers. This leads to more advanced topics, a number of which are treated in this book: Historical remarks on Bernoulli numbers and the formula for the sum of powers of consecutive integers; a formula for Bernoulli numbers by Stirling numbers; the Clausen–von Staudt theorem on the denominators of Bernoulli numbers; Kummer's congruence between Bernoulli numbers and a related theory of p-adic measures; the Euler–Maclaurin summation formula; the functional equation of the Riemann zeta function and the Dirichlet L functions, and their special values at suitable integers; various formulas of exponential sums expressed by generalized Bernoulli numbers; the relation between ideal classes of orders of quadratic fields and equivalence classes of binary quadratic forms; class number formula for positive definite binary quadratic forms; congruences between some class numbers and Bernoulli numbers; simple zeta functions of prehomogeneous vector spaces; Hurwitz numbers; Barnes multiple zeta functions and their special values; the functional equation of the doub le zeta functions; and poly-Bernoulli numbers. An appendix by Don Zagier on curious and exotic identities for Bernoulli numbers is also supplied. This book will be enjoyable both for amateurs and for professional researchers. Because the logical relations between the chapters are loosely connected, readers can start with any chapter depending on their interests. The expositions of the topics are not always typical, and some parts are completely new.

The aim of the series is to present new and important developments in pure and applied mathematics. Well established in the community over two decades, it offers a large library of mathematics including several important classics. The volumes supply thorough and detailed expositions of the methods and ideas essential to the topics in question. In addition, they convey their relationships to other parts of mathematics. The series is addressed to advanced readers wishing to thoroughly study the topic. Editorial Board Lev Birbrair, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, Brasil Victor P. Maslov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia Walter D. Neumann, Columbia University, New York, USA Markus J. Pflaum, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Dierk Schleicher, Jacobs University, Bremen, Germany

This is the first book on the theory of multiple zeta values since its birth around 1994. Readers will find that the shuffle products of multiple zeta values are applied to complicated counting problems in combinatorics, and numerous interesting identities are produced that are ready to be used. This will provide a powerful tool to deal with problems in multiple zeta values, both in evaluations and shuffle relations. The volume will benefit graduate students doing research in number theory.

There are still many arithmetic mysteries surrounding the values of the Riemann zeta function at the odd positive integers greater than one. For example, the matter of their irrationality, let alone transcendence, remains largely unknown. However, by extending ideas of Garland, Borel proved that these values are related to the higher K-theory of the ring of integers. Shortly afterwards, Bloch and Kato proposed a Tamagawa number-type conjecture for these values, and showed that it would follow from a result in motivic cohomology which was unknown at the time. This vital result from motivic cohomology was subsequently proven by Huber, Kings, and Wildeshaus. Bringing together key results from K-theory, motivic cohomology, and Iwasawa theory, this book is the first to give a complete proof, accessible to graduate students, of the Bloch–Kato conjecture for odd positive integers. It includes a new account of the results from motivic cohomology by Huber and Kings.

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in problems involving closed form evaluations of (and representations of the Riemann Zeta function at positive integer arguments as) various families of series associated with the Riemann Zeta function ((s), the Hurwitz Zeta function ((s,a), and their such extensions and generalizations as (for example) Lerch's transcendent (or the Hurwitz-Lerch Zeta function) iI>(z, s, a). Some of these developments have apparently stemmed from an over two-century-old theorem of Christian Goldbach (1690-1764), which was stated in a letter dated 1729 from Goldbach to Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), from recent rediscoveries of a fairly rapidly convergent series representation for ((3), which is actually contained in a 1772 paper by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), and from another known series representation for ((3), which was used by Roger Apery (1916-1994) in 1978 in his celebrated proof of the irrationality of ((3). This book is motivated essentially by the fact that the theories and applications of the various methods and techniques used in dealing with many different families of series associated with the Riemann Zeta function and its aforementioned relatives are to be found so far only"in widely scattered journal articles. Thus our systematic (and unified) presentation of these results on the evaluation and representation of the Zeta and related functions is expected to fill a conspicuous gap in the existing books dealing exclusively with these Zeta functions.