Algebraic L Theory And Topological Manifolds

Assuming no previous acquaintance with surgery theory and justifying all the algebraic concepts used by their relevance to topology, Dr Ranicki explains the applications of quadratic forms to the classification of topological manifolds, in a unified algebraic framework.

Manifolds play an important role in topology, geometry, complex analysis, algebra, and classical mechanics. Learning manifolds differs from most other introductory mathematics in that the subject matter is often completely unfamiliar. This introduction guides readers by explaining the roles manifolds play in diverse branches of mathematics and physics. The book begins with the basics of general topology and gently moves to manifolds, the fundamental group, and covering spaces.

The structure space of a closed topological -manifold classifies bundles whose fibers are closed -manifolds equipped with a homotopy equivalence to . The authors construct a highly connected map from to a concoction of algebraic -theory and algebraic -theory spaces associated with . The construction refines the well-known surgery theoretic analysis of the block structure space of in terms of -theory.

This book is an introduction to surgery theory: the standard classification method for high-dimensional manifolds. It is aimed at graduate students, who have already had a basic topology course, and would now like to understand the topology of high-dimensional manifolds. This text contains entry-level accounts of the various prerequisites of both algebra and topology, including basic homotopy and homology, Poincare duality, bundles, co-bordism, embeddings, immersions, Whitehead torsion, Poincare complexes, spherical fibrations and quadratic forms and formations. While concentrating on the basic mechanics of surgery, this book includes many worked examples, useful drawings for illustration of the algebra and references for further reading.

This book is an introduction to manifolds at the beginning graduate level, and accessible to any student who has completed a solid undergraduate degree in mathematics. It contains the essential topological ideas that are needed for the further study of manifolds, particularly in the context of differential geometry, algebraic topology, and related fields. Although this second edition has the same basic structure as the first edition, it has been extensively revised and clarified; not a single page has been left untouched. The major changes include a new introduction to CW complexes (replacing most of the material on simplicial complexes in Chapter 5); expanded treatments of manifolds with boundary, local compactness, group actions, and proper maps; and a new section on paracompactness.

In this book the author motivates what is to follow in the book by explaining the roles manifolds play in topology, geometry, complex analysis, algebra & classical mechanics with a final pass at general relativity. The book begins with the basics of general topology & gently moves to manifolds, the fundamental group, & covering spaces.

This book discusses topics ranging from traditional areas of topology, such as knot theory and the topology of manifolds, to areas such as differential and algebraic geometry. It also discusses other topics such as three-manifolds, group actions, and algebraic varieties.

The theory of topological modular forms is an intricate blend of classical algebraic modular forms and stable homotopy groups of spheres. The construction of this theory combines an algebro-geometric perspective on elliptic curves over finite fields with techniques from algebraic topology, particularly stable homotopy theory. It has applications to and connections with manifold topology, number theory, and string theory. This book provides a careful, accessible introduction to topological modular forms. After a brief history and an extended overview of the subject, the book proper commences with an exposition of classical aspects of elliptic cohomology, including background material on elliptic curves and modular forms, a description of the moduli stack of elliptic curves, an explanation of the exact functor theorem for constructing cohomology theories, and an exploration of sheaves in stable homotopy theory. There follows a treatment of more specialized topics, including localization of spectra, the deformation theory of formal groups, and Goerss-Hopkins obstruction theory for multiplicative structures on spectra. The book then proceeds to more advanced material, including discussions of the string orientation, the sheaf of spectra on the moduli stack of elliptic curves, the homotopy of topological modular forms, and an extensive account of the construction of the spectrum of topological modular forms. The book concludes with the three original, pioneering and enormously influential manuscripts on the subject, by Hopkins, Miller, and Mahowald.