The Geometry of Four-manifolds

The Geometry of Four-manifolds
Title The Geometry of Four-manifolds PDF eBook
Author S. K. Donaldson
Publisher Oxford University Press
Pages 464
Release 1997
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 9780198502692

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This text provides an accessible account to the modern study of the geometry of four-manifolds. Prerequisites are a firm grounding in differential topology and geometry, as may be gained from the first year of a graduate course.

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds
Title The Wild World of 4-Manifolds PDF eBook
Author Alexandru Scorpan
Publisher American Mathematical Soc.
Pages 642
Release 2005-05-10
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 0821837494

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What a wonderful book! I strongly recommend this book to anyone, especially graduate students, interested in getting a sense of 4-manifolds. --MAA Reviews The book gives an excellent overview of 4-manifolds, with many figures and historical notes. Graduate students, nonexperts, and experts alike will enjoy browsing through it. -- Robion C. Kirby, University of California, Berkeley This book offers a panorama of the topology of simply connected smooth manifolds of dimension four. Dimension four is unlike any other dimension; it is large enough to have room for wild things to happen, but small enough so that there is no room to undo the wildness. For example, only manifolds of dimension four can exhibit infinitely many distinct smooth structures. Indeed, their topology remains the least understood today. To put things in context, the book starts with a survey of higher dimensions and of topological 4-manifolds. In the second part, the main invariant of a 4-manifold--the intersection form--and its interaction with the topology of the manifold are investigated. In the third part, as an important source of examples, complex surfaces are reviewed. In the final fourth part of the book, gauge theory is presented; this differential-geometric method has brought to light how unwieldy smooth 4-manifolds truly are, and while bringing new insights, has raised more questions than answers. The structure of the book is modular, organized into a main track of about two hundred pages, augmented by extensive notes at the end of each chapter, where many extra details, proofs and developments are presented. To help the reader, the text is peppered with over 250 illustrations and has an extensive index.

Instantons and Four-Manifolds

Instantons and Four-Manifolds
Title Instantons and Four-Manifolds PDF eBook
Author Daniel S. Freed
Publisher Springer Science & Business Media
Pages 212
Release 2012-12-06
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 1461397030

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From the reviews of the first edition: "This book exposes the beautiful confluence of deep techniques and ideas from mathematical physics and the topological study of the differentiable structure of compact four-dimensional manifolds, compact spaces locally modeled on the world in which we live and operate... The book is filled with insightful remarks, proofs, and contributions that have never before appeared in print. For anyone attempting to understand the work of Donaldson and the applications of gauge theories to four-dimensional topology, the book is a must." #Science#1 "I would strongly advise the graduate student or working mathematician who wishes to learn the analytic aspects of this subject to begin with Freed and Uhlenbeck's book." #Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society#2

Smooth Four-Manifolds and Complex Surfaces

Smooth Four-Manifolds and Complex Surfaces
Title Smooth Four-Manifolds and Complex Surfaces PDF eBook
Author Robert Friedman
Publisher Springer Science & Business Media
Pages 532
Release 2013-03-09
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 3662030284

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In 1961 Smale established the generalized Poincare Conjecture in dimensions greater than or equal to 5 [129] and proceeded to prove the h-cobordism theorem [130]. This result inaugurated a major effort to classify all possible smooth and topological structures on manifolds of dimension at least 5. By the mid 1970's the main outlines of this theory were complete, and explicit answers (especially concerning simply connected manifolds) as well as general qualitative results had been obtained. As an example of such a qualitative result, a closed, simply connected manifold of dimension 2: 5 is determined up to finitely many diffeomorphism possibilities by its homotopy type and its Pontrjagin classes. There are similar results for self-diffeomorphisms, which, at least in the simply connected case, say that the group of self-diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold M of dimension at least 5 is commensurate with an arithmetic subgroup of the linear algebraic group of all automorphisms of its so-called rational minimal model which preserve the Pontrjagin classes [131]. Once the high dimensional theory was in good shape, attention shifted to the remaining, and seemingly exceptional, dimensions 3 and 4. The theory behind the results for manifolds of dimension at least 5 does not carryover to manifolds of these low dimensions, essentially because there is no longer enough room to maneuver. Thus new ideas are necessary to study manifolds of these "low" dimensions.

4-Manifolds and Kirby Calculus

4-Manifolds and Kirby Calculus
Title 4-Manifolds and Kirby Calculus PDF eBook
Author Robert E. Gompf
Publisher American Mathematical Soc.
Pages 576
Release 1999
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 0821809946

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Presents an exposition of Kirby calculus, or handle body theory on 4-manifolds. This book includes such topics as branched coverings and the geography of complex surfaces, elliptic and Lefschetz fibrations, $h$-cobordisms, symplectic 4-manifolds, and Stein surfaces.

The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-Manifolds. (MN-44), Volume 44

The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-Manifolds. (MN-44), Volume 44
Title The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-Manifolds. (MN-44), Volume 44 PDF eBook
Author John W. Morgan
Publisher Princeton University Press
Pages 138
Release 2014-09-08
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 1400865166

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The recent introduction of the Seiberg-Witten invariants of smooth four-manifolds has revolutionized the study of those manifolds. The invariants are gauge-theoretic in nature and are close cousins of the much-studied SU(2)-invariants defined over fifteen years ago by Donaldson. On a practical level, the new invariants have proved to be more powerful and have led to a vast generalization of earlier results. This book is an introduction to the Seiberg-Witten invariants. The work begins with a review of the classical material on Spin c structures and their associated Dirac operators. Next comes a discussion of the Seiberg-Witten equations, which is set in the context of nonlinear elliptic operators on an appropriate infinite dimensional space of configurations. It is demonstrated that the space of solutions to these equations, called the Seiberg-Witten moduli space, is finite dimensional, and its dimension is then computed. In contrast to the SU(2)-case, the Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces are shown to be compact. The Seiberg-Witten invariant is then essentially the homology class in the space of configurations represented by the Seiberg-Witten moduli space. The last chapter gives a flavor for the applications of these new invariants by computing the invariants for most Kahler surfaces and then deriving some basic toological consequences for these surfaces.

Topology of 4-Manifolds (PMS-39), Volume 39

Topology of 4-Manifolds (PMS-39), Volume 39
Title Topology of 4-Manifolds (PMS-39), Volume 39 PDF eBook
Author Michael H. Freedman
Publisher Princeton University Press
Pages 268
Release 2014-07-14
Genre Mathematics
ISBN 1400861063

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One of the great achievements of contemporary mathematics is the new understanding of four dimensions. Michael Freedman and Frank Quinn have been the principals in the geometric and topological development of this subject, proving the Poincar and Annulus conjectures respectively. Recognition for this work includes the award of the Fields Medal of the International Congress of Mathematicians to Freedman in 1986. In Topology of 4-Manifolds these authors have collaborated to give a complete and accessible account of the current state of knowledge in this field. The basic material has been considerably simplified from the original publications, and should be accessible to most graduate students. The advanced material goes well beyond the literature; nearly one-third of the book is new. This work is indispensable for any topologist whose work includes four dimensions. It is a valuable reference for geometers and physicists who need an awareness of the topological side of the field. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.