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.

The present monograph brings to readers, as researchers and students of physics and mathematics, recent developments in symmetries, where the representation space is a symplectic manifold. This gives rise to the quantum field theory formulated in through the concept of phase space and associated with the Wigner function, a quasi-distribution of probability. This approach provides information about non-classicality of quantum systems, describes quantum chaos and is the starting point of the quantum kinetic theory. In this realm, abelian and non-abelian gauge symmetries are introduced with the concept of quasi-amplitude of probability. This leads, for instance, to Symplectic Schrödinger, Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations dealing with systems in condensed matter and particle physics. These achievements are depicted here, following a pedagogical model of presentation.

Exploring topics from classical and quantum mechnanics and field theory, this book is based on lectures presented in the Graduate Summer School at the Regional Geometry Institute in Park City, Utah, in 1991. The chapter by Bryant treats Lie groups and symplectic geometry, examining not only the connection with mechanics but also the application to differential equations and the recent work of the Gromov school. Rabin's discussion of quantum mechanics and field theory is specifically aimed at mathematicians. Alvarez describes the application of supersymmetry to prove the Atiyah-Singer index theorem, touching on ideas that also underlie more complicated applications of supersymmetry. Quinn's account of the topological quantum field theory captures the formal aspects of the path integral and shows how these ideas can influence branches of mathematics which at first glance may not seem connected. Presenting material at a level between that of textbooks and research papers, much of the book would provide excellent material for graduate courses. The book provides an entree into a field that promises to remain exciting and important for years to come.

It has been said that `String theorists talk to string theorists and everyone else wonders what they are saying'. This book will be a great help to those researchers who are challenged by modern quantum field theory. Quantum field theory experienced a renaissance in the late 1960s. Here, participants in the Les Houches sessions of 1970/75, now key players in quantum field theory and its many impacts, assess developments in their field of interest and provide guidance to young researchers challenged by these developments, but overwhelmed by their complexities. The book is not a textbook on string theory, rather it is a complement to Polchinski's book on string theory. It is a survey of current problems which have their origin in quantum field theory.

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.

Described here is Feynman's path integral approach to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory from a functional integral point of view. Therein lies the main focus of Euclidean field theory. The notion of Gaussian measure and the construction of the Wiener measure are covered. As well, the notion of classical mechanics and the Schrödinger picture of quantum mechanics are recalled. There, the equivalence to the path integral formalism is shown by deriving the quantum mechanical propagator from it. Additionally, an introduction to elements of constructive quantum field theory is provided for readers.

This is a book on symplectic topology, a rapidly developing field of mathematics which originated as a geometric tool for problems of classical mechanics. Since the 1980s, powerful methods such as Gromov's pseudo-holomorphic curves and Morse-Floer theory on loop spaces gave rise to the discovery of unexpected symplectic phenomena. The present book focuses on function spaces associated with a symplectic manifold. A number of recent advances show that these spaces exhibit intriguing properties and structures, giving rise to an alternative intuition and new tools in symplectic topology. The book provides an essentially self-contained introduction into these developments along with applications to symplectic topology, algebra and geometry of symplectomorphism groups, Hamiltonian dynamics and quantum mechanics. It will appeal to researchers and students from the graduate level onwards.