Geometric Methods In Physics Xxxv

This book features a selection of articles based on the XXXV Białowieża Workshop on Geometric Methods in Physics, 2016. The series of Białowieża workshops, attended by a community of experts at the crossroads of mathematics and physics, is a major annual event in the field. The works in this book, based on presentations given at the workshop, are previously unpublished, at the cutting edge of current research, typically grounded in geometry and analysis, and with applications to classical and quantum physics. In 2016 the special session "Integrability and Geometry" in particular attracted pioneers and leading specialists in the field. Traditionally, the Białowieża Workshop is followed by a School on Geometry and Physics, for advanced graduate students and early-career researchers, and the book also includes extended abstracts of the lecture series.

This book collects papers based on the XXXVI Białowieża Workshop on Geometric Methods in Physics, 2017. The Workshop, which attracts a community of experts active at the crossroads of mathematics and physics, represents a major annual event in the field. Based on presentations given at the Workshop, the papers gathered here are previously unpublished, at the cutting edge of current research, and primarily grounded in geometry and analysis, with applications to classical and quantum physics. In addition, a Special Session was dedicated to S. Twareque Ali, a distinguished mathematical physicist at Concordia University, Montreal, who passed away in January 2016. For the past six years, the Białowieża Workshops have been complemented by a School on Geometry and Physics, comprising a series of advanced lectures for graduate students and early-career researchers. The extended abstracts of this year’s lecture series are also included here. The unique character of the Workshop-and-School series is due in part to the venue: a famous historical, cultural and environmental site in the Białowieża forest, a UNESCO World Heritage Centre in eastern Poland. Lectures are given in the Nature and Forest Museum, and local traditions are interwoven with the scientific activities.

After several decades of reduced contact, the interaction between physicists and mathematicians in the front-line research of both fields recently became deep and fruit ful again. Many of the leading specialists of both fields became involved in this devel opment. This process even led to the discovery of previously unsuspected connections between various subfields of physics and mathematics. In mathematics this concerns in particular knots von Neumann algebras, Kac-Moody algebras, integrable non-linear partial differential equations, and differential geometry in low dimensions, most im portantly in three and four dimensional spaces. In physics it concerns gravity, string theory, integrable classical and quantum field theories, solitons and the statistical me chanics of surfaces. New discoveries in these fields are made at a rapid pace. This conference brought together active researchers in these areas, reporting their results and discussing with other participants to further develop thoughts in future new directions. The conference was attended by SO participants from 15 nations. These proceedings document the program and the talks at the conference. This conference was preceded by a two-week summer school. Ten lecturers gave extended lectures on related topics. The proceedings of the school will also be published in the NATO-AS[ volume by Plenum. The Editors vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank the many people who have made the conference a success. Furthermore, ·we appreciate the excellent talks. The active participation of everyone present made the conference lively and stimulating. All of this made our efforts worth while.

A monograph on some of the ways geometry and analysis can be used in mathematical problems of physical interest. The roles of symmetry, bifurcation and Hamiltonian systems in diverse applications are explored.

The following pages represent the Proceedings of the XI Annual Conference on Differential Geometric Methods in Mathematical Physics which was held in Jerusalem from August 5 through 11, 1982 under the auspices of the Tel Aviv University and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. In addition to the above mentioned institutions, partial financial support was received form the Bank Leumi Lelsrael Fund for International Conferences, the American Friends of the Tel Aviv Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Mathematics and Physics Branch of the United States Army Research, Development and Standardization Group (UK). We are grateful to all of these organizations for their financial support. GAUGE THEORY AND NUCLEAR STRUCTURE K. Bleuler Institut fur Theoretische Kernphysik der Universitat Bonn NuBallee 14-16, D-5300 Bonn, West-Germany I. INTRODUCTION The recent, most impressive verification of the Salam­ -Weinberg theory of electro-weak interactions through the experimental discovery of the so-called inter­ mediate bosons represents, at the same time, a success of the general gauge theoretical viewpoints in modern particle physics (quantum chromodynamics, 0CD). This theory leads to a deeper and by far more natural inter­ pretation of particle interaction and induces, as we shall see, also a profound change in our understanding of nuclear structure.

Both mathematics and mathematical physics have many active areas of research where the interplay between geometry and quantum field theory has proved extremely fruitful. Duality, gauge field theory, geometric quantization, Seiberg-Witten theory, spectral properties and families of Dirac operators, and the geometry of loop groups offer some striking recent examples of modern topics which stand on the borderline between geometry and analysis on the one hand and quantum field theory on the other, where the physicist's and the mathematician's perspective complement each other, leading to new mathematical and physical concepts and results.This volume introduces the reader to some basic mathematical and physical tools and methods required to follow the recent developments in some active areas of mathematical physics, including duality, gauge field theory, geometric quantization, Seiberg-Witten theory, spectral properties and families of Dirac operators, and the geometry of loop groups. It comprises seven self-contained lectures, which should progressively give the reader a precise idea of some of the techniques used in these areas, as well as a few short communications presented by young participants at the school.