Quantization Of Singular Symplectic Quotients

This is the first exposition of the quantization theory of singular symplectic (Marsden-Weinstein) quotients and their applications to physics. The reader will acquire an introduction to the various techniques used in this area, as well as an overview of the latest research approaches. These involve classical differential and algebraic geometry, as well as operator algebras and noncommutative geometry. Thus one will be amply prepared to follow future developments in this field.

For a stratified symplectic space, a suitable concept of stratified Kahler polarization encapsulates Kahler polarizations on the strata and the behaviour of the polarizations across the strata and leads to the notion of stratified Kahler space which establishes an intimate relationship between nilpotent orbits, singular reduction, invariant theory, reductive dual pairs, Jordan triple systems, symmetric domains, and pre-homogeneous spaces: the closure of a holomorphic nilpotent orbit or, equivalently, the closure of the stratum of the associated pre-homogeneous space of parabolic type carries a (positive) normal Kahler structure. In the world of singular Poisson geometry, the closures of principal holomorphic nilpotent orbits, positive definite hermitian JTS', and certain pre-homogeneous spaces appear as different incarnations of the same structure.The closure of the principal holomorphic nilpotent orbit arises from a semisimple holomorphic orbit by contraction. Symplectic reduction carries a positive Kahler manifold to a positive normal Kahler space in such a way that the sheaf of germs of polarized functions coincides with the ordinary sheaf of germs of holomorphic functions. Symplectic reduction establishes a close relationship between singular reduced spaces and nilpotent orbits of the dual groups.Projectivization of holomorphic nilpotent orbits yields exotic (positive) stratified Kahler structures on complex projective spaces and on certain complex projective varieties including complex projective quadrics. The space of (in general twisted) representations of the fundamental group of a closed surface in a compact Lie group or, equivalently, a moduli space of central Yang-Mills connections on a principal bundle over a surface, inherits a (positive) normal (stratified) Kahler structure. Physical examples are provided by certain reduced spaces arising from angular momentum zero.

The Singularity School and Conference took place in Luminy, Marseille, from January 24th to February 25th 2005. More than 180 mathematicians from over 30 countries converged to discuss recent developments in singularity theory.The volume contains the elementary and advanced courses conducted by singularities specialists during the conference, general lectures on singularity theory, and lectures on applications of the theory to various domains. The subjects range from geometry and topology of singularities, through real and complex singularities, to applications of singularities.

This book provides an introduction to deformation quantization and its relation to quantum field theory, with a focus on the constructions of Kontsevich and Cattaneo & Felder. This subject originated from an attempt to understand the mathematical structure when passing from a commutative classical algebra of observables to a non-commutative quantum algebra of observables. Developing deformation quantization as a semi-classical limit of the expectation value for a certain observable with respect to a special sigma model, the book carefully describes the relationship between the involved algebraic and field-theoretic methods. The connection to quantum field theory leads to the study of important new field theories and to insights in other parts of mathematics such as symplectic and Poisson geometry, and integrable systems. Based on lectures given by the author at the University of Zurich, the book will be of interest to graduate students in mathematics or theoretical physics. Readers will be able to begin the first chapter after a basic course in Analysis, Linear Algebra and Topology, and references are provided for more advanced prerequisites.

The Mumford-Shah functional was introduced in the 1980s as a tool for automatic image segmentation, but its study gave rise to many interesting questions of analysis and geometric measure theory. The main object under scrutiny is a free boundary K where the minimizer may have jumps. The book presents an extensive description of the known regularity properties of the singular sets K, and the techniques to get them. It is largely self-contained, and should be accessible to graduate students in analysis. The core of the book is composed of regularity results that were proved in the last ten years and which are presented in a more detailed and unified way.

The papers in this volume are based on talks given at the 2001 Manchester Meeting of the London Mathematical Society, which was followed by an international workshop on Quantization, Deformations, and New Homological and Categorical Methods in Mathematical Physics. Focus is on the topics suggested by the title: quantization in its various aspects, Poisson brackets and generalizations, and structures beyond'' this, including symplectic supermanifolds, operads, Lie groupoids and Lie (bi)algebroids, and algebras with $n$-ary operations. The book offers accounts of up-to-date results as well as accessible expositions aimed at a broad reading audience of researchers in differential geometry, algebraic topology and mathematical physics.