Integral Geometry And Tomography

This volume consists of a collection of papers that brings together fundamental research in Radon transforms, integral geometry, and tomography. It grew out of the Special Session at a Sectional Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in 2004. The book contains very recent work of some of the top researchers in the field. The articles in the book deal with the determination of properties of functions on a manifold by integral theoretic methods, or by determining the geometric structure of subsets of a manifold by analytic methods. Of particular concern are ways of reconstructing an unknown function from some of its projections. Radon transforms were developed at the beginning of the twentieth century by researchers who were motivated by problems in differential geometry, mathematical physics, and partial differential equations. Later, medical applications of these transforms produced breakthroughs in imaging technology that resulted in the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for the development of computerized tomography. Today the subject boasts substantial cross-disciplinary interactions, both in pure and applied mathematics as well as medicine, engineering, biology, physics, geosciences, and industrial testing. Therefore, this volume should be of interest to a wide spectrum of researchers both in mathematics and in other fields.

This book contains the proceedings of an AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference on Integral Geometry and Tomography, held in June 1989 at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. The papers collected here represent current research in these two interrelated fields. The articles in pure mathematics range over such diverse areas as combinatorics, geometric inequalities, micro-local analysis, group theory, and harmonic analysis. The interplay between Lie group theory, geometry, harmonic analysis, and Radon transforms is well covered.The papers on tomography reflect current research on X-ray computed tomography, as well as radiation dose planning, radar, and partial differential equations. In addition to describing current research, this book provides a useful perspective on the interplay between the fields. For example, abstract theorems about Radon transforms are used to understand applied mathematics, while applied mathematics motivates some of the results in pure mathematics. Though directed at specialists in the field, the book would also be of interest to others who wish to understand current research in these areas and to witness how they relate to other branches of mathematics.

Geometric tomography deals with the retrieval of information about a geometric object from data concerning its projections (shadows) on planes or cross-sections by planes. It is a geometric relative of computerized tomography, which reconstructs an image from X-rays of a human patient. It overlaps with convex geometry, and employs many tools from that area including integral geometry. It also has connections to geometric probing in robotics and to stereology. The main text contains a rigorous treatment of the subject starting from basic concepts and moving up to the research frontier: seventy-two unsolved problems are stated. Each chapter ends with extensive notes, historical remarks, and some biographies. This comprehensive work will be invaluable to specialists in geometry and tomography; the opening chapters can also be read by advanced undergraduate students.

One of the most exciting features of tomography is the strong relationship between high-level pure mathematics (such as harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, microlocal analysis, and group theory) and applications to medical imaging, impedance imaging, radiotherapy, and industrial nondestructive evaluation. This book contains the refereed proceedings of the AMS-SIAM Summer Seminar on Tomography, Impedance Imaging, and Integral Geometry, held at Mount Holyoke College in June 1993. A number of common themes are found among the papers. Group theory is fundamental both to tomographic sampling theorems and to pure Radon transforms. Microlocal and Fourier analysis are important for research in all three fields. Differential equations and integral geometric techniques are useful in impedance imaging. In short, a common body of mathematics can be used to solve dramatically different problems in pure and applied mathematics. Radon transforms can be used to model impedance imaging problems. These proceedings include exciting results in all three fields represented at the conference.

This book contains the proceedings of an AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference on Integral Geometry and Tomography, held in June 1989 at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. The papers collected here represent current research in these two interrelated fields. The articles in pure mathematics range over such diverse areas as combinatorics, geometric inequalities, micro-local analysis, group theory, and harmonic analysis. The interplay between Lie group theory, geometry, harmonic analysis, and Radon transforms is well covered. The papers on tomography reflect current research on X-ray computed tomography, as well as radiation dose planning, radar, and partial differential equations. In addition to describing current research, this book provides a useful perspective on the interplay between the fields. For example, abstract theorems about Radon transforms are used to understand applied mathematics, while applied mathematics motivates some of the results in pure mathematics. Though directed at specialists in the field, the book would also be of interest to others who wish to understand current research in these areas and to witness how they relate to other branches of mathematics.

In this text, integral geometry deals with Radon’s problem of representing a function on a manifold in terms of its integrals over certain submanifolds—hence the term the Radon transform. Examples and far-reaching generalizations lead to fundamental problems such as: (i) injectivity, (ii) inversion formulas, (iii) support questions, (iv) applications (e.g., to tomography, partial di erential equations and group representations). For the case of the plane, the inversion theorem and the support theorem have had major applications in medicine through tomography and CAT scanning. While containing some recent research, the book is aimed at beginning graduate students for classroom use or self-study. A number of exercises point to further results with documentation. From the reviews: “Integral Geometry is a fascinating area, where numerous branches of mathematics meet together. the contents of the book is concentrated around the duality and double vibration, which is realized through the masterful treatment of a variety of examples. the book is written by an expert, who has made fundamental contributions to the area.” —Boris Rubin, Louisiana State University

This study contains elementary introductions to properties of the Radon transform plus coverage of more advanced topics.