Books in the Annals of Mathematics Studies series

Convolution and Equidistribution explores an important aspect of number theory--the theory of exponential sums over finite fields and their Mellin transforms--from a new, categorical point of view. The book presents fundamentally important results and a plethora of examples, opening up new directions in the subject. The finite-field Mellin transform (of a function on the multiplicative group of a finite field) is defined by summing that function against variable multiplicative characters. The basic question considered in the book is how the values of the Mellin transform are distributed (in a probabilistic sense), in cases where the input function is suitably algebro-geometric. This question is answered by the book's main theorem, using a mixture of geometric, categorical, and group-theoretic methods. By providing a new framework for studying Mellin transforms over finite fields, this book opens up a new way for researchers to further explore the subject.

This book addresses a basic question in differential geometry that was first considered by physicists Stanley Deser and Adam Schwimmer in 1993 in their study of conformal anomalies. The question concerns conformally invariant functionals on the space of Riemannian metrics over a given manifold. These functionals act on a metric by first constructing a Riemannian scalar out of it, and then integrating this scalar over the manifold. Suppose this integral remains invariant under conformal re-scalings of the underlying metric. What information can one then deduce about the Riemannian scalar? Deser and Schwimmer asserted that the Riemannian scalar must be a linear combination of three obvious candidates, each of which clearly satisfies the required property: a local conformal invariant, a divergence of a Riemannian vector field, and the Chern-Gauss-Bonnet integrand. This book provides a proof of this conjecture. The result itself sheds light on the algebraic structure of conformal anomalies, which appear in many settings in theoretical physics. It also clarifies the geometric significance of the renormalized volume of asymptotically hyperbolic Einstein manifolds. The methods introduced here make an interesting connection between algebraic properties of local invariants--such as the classical Riemannian invariants and the more recently studied conformal invariants--and the study of global invariants, in this case conformally invariant integrals. Key tools used to establish this connection include the Fefferman-Graham ambient metric and the author's super divergence formula.

This book makes a significant inroad into the unexpectedly difficult question of existence of Frechet derivatives of Lipschitz maps of Banach spaces into higher dimensional spaces. Because the question turns out to be closely related to porous sets in Banach spaces, it provides a bridge between descriptive set theory and the classical topic of existence of derivatives of vector-valued Lipschitz functions. The topic is relevant to classical analysis and descriptive set theory on Banach spaces. The book opens several new research directions in this area of geometric nonlinear functional analysis. The new methods developed here include a game approach to perturbational variational principles that is of independent interest. Detailed explanation of the underlying ideas and motivation behind the proofs of the new results on Frechet differentiability of vector-valued functions should make these arguments accessible to a wider audience. The most important special case of the differentiability results, that Lipschitz mappings from a Hilbert space into the plane have points of Frechet differentiability, is given its own chapter with a proof that is independent of much of the work done to prove more general results. The book raises several open questions concerning its two main topics.

The original goal that ultimately led to this volume was the construction of "e;motivic cohomology theory,"e; whose existence was conjectured by A. Beilinson and S. Lichtenbaum. This is achieved in the book's fourth paper, using results of the other papers whose additional role is to contribute to our understanding of various properties of algebraic cycles. The material presented provides the foundations for the recent proof of the celebrated "e;Milnor Conjecture"e; by Vladimir Voevodsky. The theory of sheaves of relative cycles is developed in the first paper of this volume. The theory of presheaves with transfers and more specifically homotopy invariant presheaves with transfers is the main theme of the second paper. The Friedlander-Lawson moving lemma for families of algebraic cycles appears in the third paper in which a bivariant theory called bivariant cycle cohomology is constructed. The fifth and last paper in the volume gives a proof of the fact that bivariant cycle cohomology groups are canonically isomorphic (in appropriate cases) to Bloch's higher Chow groups, thereby providing a link between the authors' theory and Bloch's original approach to motivic (co-)homology.

Introduces methods in the theory of partial differential equations derivable from a Lagrangian. This book develops a general theory of integral identities, the theory of "compatible currents," which extends the work of E Noether.

Surgery theory is the basis for the classification theory of manifolds. This title reflects on the accomplishments of surgery theory as well as its varied interactions with algebra, analysis, and geometry. It covers the topics that include applications of surgery, Wall's finiteness obstruction, algebraic surgery, and surgery in dimension four.

Applies model theoretic methods to the study of certain finite permutation groups, the automorphism groups of structures for a fixed finite language with a bounded number of orbits on 4-tuples. This book treats the general case by developing analogs of the model theoretic methods of geometric stability theory.

This book provides the first unified examination of the relationship between Radon transforms on symmetric spaces of compact type and the infinitesimal versions of two fundamental rigidity problems in Riemannian geometry. Its primary focus is the spectral rigidity problem: Can the metric of a given Riemannian symmetric space of compact type be characterized by means of the spectrum of its Laplacian? It also addresses a question rooted in the Blaschke problem: Is a Riemannian metric on a projective space whose geodesics are all closed and of the same length isometric to the canonical metric? The authors comprehensively treat the results concerning Radon transforms and the infinitesimal versions of these two problems. Their main result implies that most Grassmannians are spectrally rigid to the first order. This is particularly important, for there are still few isospectrality results for positively curved spaces and these are the first such results for symmetric spaces of compact type of rank >1. The authors exploit the theory of overdetermined partial differential equations and harmonic analysis on symmetric spaces to provide criteria for infinitesimal rigidity that apply to a large class of spaces. A substantial amount of basic material about Riemannian geometry, symmetric spaces, and Radon transforms is included in a clear and elegant presentation that will be useful to researchers and advanced students in differential geometry.

This book proves an analogue of William Thurston's celebrated hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem in the context of complex hyperbolic discrete groups, and then derives two main geometric consequences from it. The first is the construction of large numbers of closed real hyperbolic 3-manifolds which bound complex hyperbolic orbifolds--the only known examples of closed manifolds that simultaneously have these two kinds of geometric structures. The second is a complete understanding of the structure of complex hyperbolic reflection triangle groups in cases where the angle is small. In an accessible and straightforward manner, Richard Evan Schwartz also presents a large amount of useful information on complex hyperbolic geometry and discrete groups. Schwartz relies on elementary proofs and avoids quotations of preexisting technical material as much as possible. For this reason, this book will benefit graduate students seeking entry into this emerging area of research, as well as researchers in allied fields such as Kleinian groups and CR geometry.

A collection of papers on mathematical aspects of nonlinear dispersive equations, including both expository and technical papers that reflect a number of advances in the field. The expository papers describe the state of the art and research directions. The technical papers concentrate on a specific problem and the related analysis.

In The Structure of Affine Buildings, Richard Weiss gives a detailed presentation of the complete proof of the classification of Bruhat-Tits buildings first completed by Jacques Tits in 1986. The book includes numerous results about automorphisms, completions, and residues of these buildings. It also includes tables correlating the results in the locally finite case with the results of Tits's classification of absolutely simple algebraic groups defined over a local field. A companion to Weiss's The Structure of Spherical Buildings, The Structure of Affine Buildings is organized around the classification of spherical buildings and their root data as it is carried out in Tits and Weiss's Moufang Polygons.

The results established in this book constitute a new departure in ergodic theory and a significant expansion of its scope. Traditional ergodic theorems focused on amenable groups, and relied on the existence of an asymptotically invariant sequence in the group, the resulting maximal inequalities based on covering arguments, and the transference principle. Here, Alexander Gorodnik and Amos Nevo develop a systematic general approach to the proof of ergodic theorems for a large class of non-amenable locally compact groups and their lattice subgroups. Simple general conditions on the spectral theory of the group and the regularity of the averaging sets are formulated, which suffice to guarantee convergence to the ergodic mean. In particular, this approach gives a complete solution to the problem of establishing mean and pointwise ergodic theorems for the natural averages on semisimple algebraic groups and on their discrete lattice subgroups. Furthermore, an explicit quantitative rate of convergence to the ergodic mean is established in many cases. The topic of this volume lies at the intersection of several mathematical fields of fundamental importance. These include ergodic theory and dynamics of non-amenable groups, harmonic analysis on semisimple algebraic groups and their homogeneous spaces, quantitative non-Euclidean lattice point counting problems and their application to number theory, as well as equidistribution and non-commutative Diophantine approximation. Many examples and applications are provided in the text, demonstrating the usefulness of the results established.

Outer billiards is a basic dynamical system defined relative to a convex shape in the plane. B. H. Neumann introduced this system in the 1950s, and J. Moser popularized it as a toy model for celestial mechanics. All along, the so-called Moser-Neumann question has been one of the central problems in the field. This question asks whether or not one can have an outer billiards system with an unbounded orbit. The Moser-Neumann question is an idealized version of the question of whether, because of small disturbances in its orbit, the Earth can break out of its orbit and fly away from the Sun. In Outer Billiards on Kites, Richard Schwartz presents his affirmative solution to the Moser-Neumann problem. He shows that an outer billiards system can have an unbounded orbit when defined relative to any irrational kite. A kite is a quadrilateral having a diagonal that is a line of bilateral symmetry. The kite is irrational if the other diagonal divides the quadrilateral into two triangles whose areas are not rationally related. In addition to solving the basic problem, Schwartz relates outer billiards on kites to such topics as Diophantine approximation, the modular group, self-similar sets, polytope exchange maps, profinite completions of the integers, and solenoids--connections that together allow for a fairly complete analysis of the dynamical system.

This book studies the intersection cohomology of the Shimura varieties associated to unitary groups of any rank over Q. In general, these varieties are not compact. The intersection cohomology of the Shimura variety associated to a reductive group G carries commuting actions of the absolute Galois group of the reflex field and of the group G(Af) of finite adelic points of G. The second action can be studied on the set of complex points of the Shimura variety. In this book, Sophie Morel identifies the Galois action--at good places--on the G(Af)-isotypical components of the cohomology. Morel uses the method developed by Langlands, Ihara, and Kottwitz, which is to compare the Grothendieck-Lefschetz fixed point formula and the Arthur-Selberg trace formula. The first problem, that of applying the fixed point formula to the intersection cohomology, is geometric in nature and is the object of the first chapter, which builds on Morel's previous work. She then turns to the group-theoretical problem of comparing these results with the trace formula, when G is a unitary group over Q. Applications are then given. In particular, the Galois representation on a G(Af)-isotypical component of the cohomology is identified at almost all places, modulo a non-explicit multiplicity. Morel also gives some results on base change from unitary groups to general linear groups.

Ramsey theory is a fast-growing area of combinatorics with deep connections to other fields of mathematics such as topological dynamics, ergodic theory, mathematical logic, and algebra. The area of Ramsey theory dealing with Ramsey-type phenomena in higher dimensions is particularly useful. Introduction to Ramsey Spaces presents in a systematic way a method for building higher-dimensional Ramsey spaces from basic one-dimensional principles. It is the first book-length treatment of this area of Ramsey theory, and emphasizes applications for related and surrounding fields of mathematics, such as set theory, combinatorics, real and functional analysis, and topology. In order to facilitate accessibility, the book gives the method in its axiomatic form with examples that cover many important parts of Ramsey theory both finite and infinite. An exciting new direction for combinatorics, this book will interest graduate students and researchers working in mathematical subdisciplines requiring the mastery and practice of high-dimensional Ramsey theory.

In this book, Claire Voisin provides an introduction to algebraic cycles on complex algebraic varieties, to the major conjectures relating them to cohomology, and even more precisely to Hodge structures on cohomology. The volume is intended for both students and researchers, and not only presents a survey of the geometric methods developed in the last thirty years to understand the famous Bloch-Beilinson conjectures, but also examines recent work by Voisin. The book focuses on two central objects: the diagonal of a variety-and the partial Bloch-Srinivas type decompositions it may have depending on the size of Chow groups-as well as its small diagonal, which is the right object to consider in order to understand the ring structure on Chow groups and cohomology. An exploration of a sampling of recent works by Voisin looks at the relation, conjectured in general by Bloch and Beilinson, between the coniveau of general complete intersections and their Chow groups and a very particular property satisfied by the Chow ring of K3 surfaces and conjecturally by hyper-Kahler manifolds. In particular, the book delves into arguments originating in Nori's work that have been further developed by others.

The arithmetic Riemann-Roch Theorem has been shown recently by Bismut-Gillet-Soul. The proof mixes algebra, arithmetic, and analysis. The purpose of this book is to give a concise introduction to the necessary techniques, and to present a simplified and extended version of the proof. It should enable mathematicians with a background in arithmetic algebraic geometry to understand some basic techniques in the rapidly evolving field of Arakelov-theory.

Nilpotence and Periodicity in Stable Homotopy Theory describes some major advances made in algebraic topology in recent years, centering on the nilpotence and periodicity theorems, which were conjectured by the author in 1977 and proved by Devinatz, Hopkins, and Smith in 1985. During the last ten years a number of significant advances have been made in homotopy theory, and this book fills a real need for an up-to-date text on that topic. Ravenel's first few chapters are written with a general mathematical audience in mind. They survey both the ideas that lead up to the theorems and their applications to homotopy theory. The book begins with some elementary concepts of homotopy theory that are needed to state the problem. This includes such notions as homotopy, homotopy equivalence, CW-complex, and suspension. Next the machinery of complex cobordism, Morava K-theory, and formal group laws in characteristic p are introduced. The latter portion of the book provides specialists with a coherent and rigorous account of the proofs. It includes hitherto unpublished material on the smash product and chromatic convergence theorems and on modular representations of the symmetric group.

Written for advanced undergraduate and first-year graduate students, this book aims to introduce students to a serious level of p-adic analysis with important implications for number theory. The main object is the study of G-series, that is, power series y=aij=0 Ajxj with coefficients in an algebraic number field K. These series satisfy a linear differential equation Ly=0 with LIK(x) [d/dx] and have non-zero radii of convergence for each imbedding of K into the complex numbers. They have the further property that the common denominators of the first s coefficients go to infinity geometrically with the index s. After presenting a review of valuation theory and elementary p-adic analysis together with an application to the congruence zeta function, this book offers a detailed study of the p-adic properties of formal power series solutions of linear differential equations. In particular, the p-adic radii of convergence and the p-adic growth of coefficients are studied. Recent work of Christol, Bombieri, Andre, and Dwork is treated and augmented. The book concludes with Chudnovsky's theorem: the analytic continuation of a G -series is again a G -series. This book will be indispensable for those wishing to study the work of Bombieri and Andre on global relations and for the study of the arithmetic properties of solutions of ordinary differential equations.

The description for this book, Contributions to Fourier Analysis. (AM-25), will be forthcoming.

The description for this book, Degrees of Unsolvability. (AM-55), Volume 55, will be forthcoming.

The description for this book, Knot Groups. Annals of Mathematics Studies. (AM-56), Volume 56, will be forthcoming.

This book contains a valuable discussion of renormalization through the addition of counterterms to the Lagrangian, giving the first complete proof of the cancellation of all divergences in an arbitrary interaction. The author also introduces a new method of renormalizing an arbitrary Feynman amplitude, a method that is simpler than previous approaches and can be used to study the renormalized perturbation series in quantum field theory.

Algebraic K-theory describes a branch of algebra that centers about two functors. K0 and K1, which assign to each associative ring an abelian group K0 or K1 respectively. Professor Milnor sets out, in the present work, to define and study an analogous functor K2, also from associative rings to abelian groups. Just as functors K0 and K1 are important to geometric topologists, K2 is now considered to have similar topological applications. The exposition includes, besides K-theory, a considerable amount of related arithmetic.

This volume contains almost all of the papers that were read at the Conference on Discontinuous Groups and Riemann Surfaces, which was held at the University of Maryland during May 21-25, 1973. The conference was the third sequence of conferences on this subject in recent years.

This work offers a contribution in the geometric form of the theory of several complex variables. Since complex Grassmann manifolds serve as classifying spaces of complex vector bundles, the cohomology structure of a complex Grassmann manifold is of importance for the construction of Chern classes of complex vector bundles. The cohomology ring of a Grassmannian is therefore of interest in topology, differential geometry, algebraic geometry, and complex analysis. Wilhelm Stoll treats certain aspects of the complex analysis point of view.This work originated with questions in value distribution theory. Here analytic sets and differential forms rather than the corresponding homology and cohomology classes are considered. On the Grassmann manifold, the cohomology ring is isomorphic to the ring of differential forms invariant under the unitary group, and each cohomology class is determined by a family of analytic sets.