The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-manifolds

The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-manifolds PDF Author: John W. Morgan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691025975
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
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.

The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-manifolds

The Seiberg-Witten Equations and Applications to the Topology of Smooth Four-manifolds PDF Author: John W. Morgan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691025975
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Get Book

Book Description
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.

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 PDF Author: John W. Morgan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400865166
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
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.

Lectures on Seiberg-Witten Invariants

Lectures on Seiberg-Witten Invariants PDF Author: John D. Moore
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3540685928
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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Book Description
In the fall of 1994, Edward Witten proposed a set of equations which give the main results of Donaldson theory in a far simpler way than had been thought possible. The purpose of these notes is to provide an elementary introduction to the equations that Witten proposed. They are directed towards graduate students who have already taken a basic course in differential geometry and topology.

Lectures on Seiberg-Witten Invariants

Lectures on Seiberg-Witten Invariants PDF Author: John D. Moore
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3540409521
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 130

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Book Description
Riemannian, symplectic and complex geometry are often studied by means ofsolutions to systems ofnonlinear differential equations, such as the equa tions of geodesics, minimal surfaces, pseudoholomorphic curves and Yang Mills connections. For studying such equations, a new unified technology has been developed, involving analysis on infinite-dimensional manifolds. A striking applications of the new technology is Donaldson's theory of "anti-self-dual" connections on SU(2)-bundles over four-manifolds, which applies the Yang-Mills equations from mathematical physics to shed light on the relationship between the classification of topological and smooth four-manifolds. This reverses the expected direction of application from topology to differential equations to mathematical physics. Even though the Yang-Mills equations are only mildly nonlinear, a prodigious amount of nonlinear analysis is necessary to fully understand the properties of the space of solutions. . At our present state of knowledge, understanding smooth structures on topological four-manifolds seems to require nonlinear as opposed to linear PDE's. It is therefore quite surprising that there is a set of PDE's which are even less nonlinear than the Yang-Mills equation, but can yield many of the most important results from Donaldson's theory. These are the Seiberg-Witte~ equations. These lecture notes stem from a graduate course given at the University of California in Santa Barbara during the spring quarter of 1995. The objective was to make the Seiberg-Witten approach to Donaldson theory accessible to second-year graduate students who had already taken basic courses in differential geometry and algebraic topology.

Notes on Seiberg-Witten Theory

Notes on Seiberg-Witten Theory PDF Author: Liviu I. Nicolaescu
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 0821821458
Category : Four-manifolds (Topology)
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
After background on elliptic equations, Clifford algebras, Dirac operators, and Fredholm theory, chapters introduce solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations and the group of gauge transformations, then look at algebraic surfaces. A final chapter presents in great detail a cut-and-paste technique for computing Seiberg-Witten invariants, covering elliptic equations on manifolds with cylindrical ends, finite energy monopoles on cylindrical manifolds, local and global properties of the moduli spaces of finite energy monopoles, and the process of reconstructing the space of monopoles on a 4-manifold decomposed into several parts by a hypersurface. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds PDF Author: Alexandru Scorpan
Publisher: American Mathematical Society
ISBN: 1470468611
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 614

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Book Description
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.

Geometric Analysis and Applications to Quantum Field Theory

Geometric Analysis and Applications to Quantum Field Theory PDF Author: Peter Bouwknegt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461200679
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
In the last decade there has been an extraordinary confluence of ideas in mathematics and theoretical physics brought about by pioneering discoveries in geometry and analysis. The various chapters in this volume, treating the interface of geometric analysis and mathematical physics, represent current research interests. No suitable succinct account of the material is available elsewhere. Key topics include: * A self-contained derivation of the partition function of Chern- Simons gauge theory in the semiclassical approximation (D.H. Adams) * Algebraic and geometric aspects of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations in conformal field theory (P. Bouwknegt) * Application of the representation theory of loop groups to simple models in quantum field theory and to certain integrable systems (A.L. Carey and E. Langmann) * A study of variational methods in Hermitian geometry from the viewpoint of the critical points of action functionals together with physical backgrounds (A. Harris) * A review of monopoles in nonabelian gauge theories (M.K. Murray) * Exciting developments in quantum cohomology (Y. Ruan) * The physics origin of Seiberg-Witten equations in 4-manifold theory (S. Wu) Graduate students, mathematicians and mathematical physicists in the above-mentioned areas will benefit from the user-friendly introductory style of each chapter as well as the comprehensive bibliographies provided for each topic. Prerequisite knowledge is minimal since sufficient background material motivates each chapter.

Instantons and Four-Manifolds

Instantons and Four-Manifolds PDF Author: Daniel S. Freed
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461397030
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
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

Floer Homology, Gauge Theory, and Low-Dimensional Topology

Floer Homology, Gauge Theory, and Low-Dimensional Topology PDF Author: Clay Mathematics Institute. Summer School
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
ISBN: 9780821838457
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Mathematical gauge theory studies connections on principal bundles, or, more precisely, the solution spaces of certain partial differential equations for such connections. Historically, these equations have come from mathematical physics, and play an important role in the description of the electro-weak and strong nuclear forces. The use of gauge theory as a tool for studying topological properties of four-manifolds was pioneered by the fundamental work of Simon Donaldson in theearly 1980s, and was revolutionized by the introduction of the Seiberg-Witten equations in the mid-1990s. Since the birth of the subject, it has retained its close connection with symplectic topology. The analogy between these two fields of study was further underscored by Andreas Floer's constructionof an infinite-dimensional variant of Morse theory that applies in two a priori different contexts: either to define symplectic invariants for pairs of Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold, or to define topological This volume is based on lecture courses and advanced seminars given at the 2004 Clay Mathematics Institute Summer School at the Alfred Renyi Institute of Mathematics in Budapest, Hungary. Several of the authors have added a considerable amount of additional material tothat presented at the school, and the resulting volume provides a state-of-the-art introduction to current research, covering material from Heegaard Floer homology, contact geometry, smooth four-manifold topology, and symplectic four-manifolds. Information for our distributors: Titles in this seriesare copublished with the Clay Mathematics Institute (Cambridge, MA).

Monopoles and Three-Manifolds

Monopoles and Three-Manifolds PDF Author: Peter Kronheimer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780521880220
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 796

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Book Description
This 2007 book provides a comprehensive treatment of Floer homology, based on the Seiberg-Witten equations. Suitable for beginning graduate students and researchers in the field, this book provides a full discussion of a central part of the study of the topology of manifolds.