This volume contains the proceedings of the conference "Colloque de Goometrie Symplectique et Physique Mathematique" which was held in Aix-en-Provence (France), June 11-15, 1990, in honor of Jean-Marie Souriau. The conference was one in the series of international meetings of the Seminaire Sud Rhodanien de Goometrie, an organization of geometers and mathematical physicists at the Universities of Avignon, Lyon, Mar seille, and Montpellier. The scientific interests of Souriau, one of the founders of geometric quantization, range from classical mechanics (symplectic geometry) and quantization problems to general relativity and astrophysics. The themes of this conference cover "only" the first two of these four areas. The subjects treated in this volume could be classified in the follow ing way: symplectic and Poisson geometry (Arms-Wilbour, Bloch-Ratiu, Brylinski-Kostant, Cushman-Sjamaar, Dufour, Lichnerowicz, Medina, Ouzilou), classical mechanics (Benenti, Holm-Marsden, Marle) , particles and fields in physics (Garcia Perez-Munoz Masque, Gotay, Montgomery, Ne'eman-Sternberg, Sniatycki) and quantization (Blattner, Huebschmann, Karasev, Rawnsley, Roger, Rosso, Weinstein). However, these subjects are so interrelated that a classification by headings such as "pure differential geometry, applications of Lie groups, constrained systems in physics, etc. ," would have produced a completely different clustering! The list of authors is not quite identical to the list of speakers at the conference. M. Karasev was invited but unable to attend; C. Itzykson and M. Vergne spoke on work which is represented here only by the title of Itzykson's talk (Surfaces triangulees et integration matricielle) and a summary of Vergne's talk.

Symplectic geometry is a central topic of current research in mathematics. Indeed, symplectic methods are key ingredients in the study of dynamical systems, differential equations, algebraic geometry, topology, mathematical physics and representations of Lie groups. This book is a true introduction to symplectic geometry, assuming only a general background in analysis and familiarity with linear algebra. It starts with the basics of the geometry of symplectic vector spaces. Then, symplectic manifolds are defined and explored. In addition to the essential classic results, such as Darboux's theorem, more recent results and ideas are also included here, such as symplectic capacity and pseudoholomorphic curves. These ideas have revolutionized the subject. The main examples of symplectic manifolds are given, including the cotangent bundle, Kähler manifolds, and coadjoint orbits. Further principal ideas are carefully examined, such as Hamiltonian vector fields, the Poisson bracket, and connections with contact manifolds. Berndt describes some of the close connections between symplectic geometry and mathematical physics in the last two chapters of the book. In particular, the moment map is defined and explored, both mathematically and in its relation to physics. He also introduces symplectic reduction, which is an important tool for reducing the number of variables in a physical system and for constructing new symplectic manifolds from old. The final chapter is on quantization, which uses symplectic methods to take classical mechanics to quantum mechanics. This section includes a discussion of the Heisenberg group and the Weil (or metaplectic) representation of the symplectic group. Several appendices provide background material on vector bundles, on cohomology, and on Lie groups and Lie algebras and their representations. Berndt's presentation of symplectic geometry is a clear and concise introduction to the major methods and applications of the subject, and requires only a minimum of prerequisites. This book would be an excellent text for a graduate course or as a source for anyone who wishes to learn about symplectic geometry.

Starting from an undergraduate level, this book systematically develops the basics of • Calculus on manifolds, vector bundles, vector fields and differential forms, • Lie groups and Lie group actions, • Linear symplectic algebra and symplectic geometry, • Hamiltonian systems, symmetries and reduction, integrable systems and Hamilton-Jacobi theory. The topics listed under the first item are relevant for virtually all areas of mathematical physics. The second and third items constitute the link between abstract calculus and the theory of Hamiltonian systems. The last item provides an introduction to various aspects of this theory, including Morse families, the Maslov class and caustics. The book guides the reader from elementary differential geometry to advanced topics in the theory of Hamiltonian systems with the aim of making current research literature accessible. The style is that of a mathematical textbook,with full proofs given in the text or as exercises. The material is illustrated by numerous detailed examples, some of which are taken up several times for demonstrating how the methods evolve and interact.

This book offers a complete discussion of techniques and topics intervening in the mathematical treatment of quantum and semi-classical mechanics. It starts with a very readable introduction to symplectic geometry. Many topics are also of genuine interest for pure mathematicians working in geometry and topology.

Approach your problems from the right end It isn't that they can't see the solution. and begin with the answers. Then one day, It is that they can't see the problem. perhaps you will find the final question. G. K. Chesterton. The Scandal of Father 'The Hermit Clad in Crane Feathers' Brown 'The point of a Pin'. in R. van Gulik's The Chinese Maze Murders. Growing specialization and diversification have brought a host of monographs and textbooks on increasingly specialized topics. However, the "tree" of knowledge of mathematics and related fields does not grow only by putting forth new branches. It also happens, quite often in fact, that branches which were thouglit to be completely disparate are suddenly seen to be related. Further, the kind and level of sophistication of mathematics applied in various sci ences has changed drastically in recent years: measure theory is used (non-trivially) in re gional and theoretical economics; algebraic geometry interacts with physics; the Minkowsky lemma, coding theory and the structure of water meet one another in packing and covering theory; quantum fields, crystal defects and mathematical programming profit from homo topy theory; Lie algebras are relevant to filtering; and prediction and electrical engineering can use Stein spaces.

This introductory book offers a unique and unified overview of symplectic geometry, highlighting the differential properties of symplectic manifolds. It consists of six chapters: Some Algebra Basics, Symplectic Manifolds, Cotangent Bundles, Symplectic G-spaces, Poisson Manifolds, and A Graded Case, concluding with a discussion of the differential properties of graded symplectic manifolds of dimensions (0,n). It is a useful reference resource for students and researchers interested in geometry, group theory, analysis and differential equations.This book is also inspiring in the emerging field of Geometric Science of Information, in particular the chapter on Symplectic G-spaces, where Jean-Louis Koszul develops Jean-Marie Souriau's tools related to the non-equivariant case of co-adjoint action on Souriau’s moment map through Souriau’s Cocycle, opening the door to Lie Group Machine Learning with Souriau-Fisher metric.

Symplectic geometry is very useful for formulating clearly and concisely problems in classical physics and also for understanding the link between classical problems and their quantum counterparts. It is thus a subject of interest to both mathematicians and physicists, though they have approached the subject from different viewpoints. This is the first book that attempts to reconcile these approaches. The authors use the uncluttered, coordinate-free approach to symplectic geometry and classical mechanics that has been developed by mathematicians over the course of the past thirty years, but at the same time apply the apparatus to a great number of concrete problems. Some of the themes emphasized in the book include the pivotal role of completely integrable systems, the importance of symmetries, analogies between classical dynamics and optics, the importance of symplectic tools in classical variational theory, symplectic features of classical field theories, and the principle of general covariance.