This volume presents an array of topics that introduce the reader to key ideas in active areas in geometry and topology. The material is presented in a way that both graduate students and researchers should find accessible and enticing. The topics covered range from Morse theory and complex geometry theory to geometric group theory, and are accompanied by exercises that are designed to deepen the reader's understanding and to guide them in exciting directions for future investigation.The editors, M.R. Bridson and S.M. Salamon, have each written an article and are accompanied by A.J. Berrick; M.C. Crabb and A.J.B Potter; M. Eastwood and J. Sawon; M.A. Guest; N.J. Hitchin and J.Seade.

Geometric group theory is a vibrant subject at the heart of modern mathematics. It is currently enjoying a period of rapid growth and great influence marked by a deepening of its fertile interactions with logic, analysis and large-scale geometry, and striking progress has been made on classical problems at the heart of cohomological group theory. This volume provides the reader with a tour through a selection of the most important trends in the field, including limit groups, quasi-isometric rigidity, non-positive curvature in group theory, and L2-methods in geometry, topology and group theory. Major survey articles exploring recent developments in the field are supported by shorter research papers, which are written in a style that readers approaching the field for the first time will find inviting.

The purpose of this book is to describe the global properties of complete simply­ connected spaces that are non-positively curved in the sense of A. D. Alexandrov and to examine the structure of groups that act properly on such spaces by isometries. Thus the central objects of study are metric spaces in which every pair of points can be joined by an arc isometric to a compact interval of the real line and in which every triangle satisfies the CAT(O) inequality. This inequality encapsulates the concept of non-positive curvature in Riemannian geometry and allows one to reflect the same concept faithfully in a much wider setting - that of geodesic metric spaces. Because the CAT(O) condition captures the essence of non-positive curvature so well, spaces that satisfy this condition display many of the elegant features inherent in the geometry of non-positively curved manifolds. There is therefore a great deal to be said about the global structure of CAT(O) spaces, and also about the structure of groups that act on them by isometries - such is the theme of this book. 1 The origins of our study lie in the fundamental work of A. D. Alexandrov .

The purpose of this book is to describe the global properties of complete simply­ connected spaces that are non-positively curved in the sense of A. D. Alexandrov and to examine the structure of groups that act properly on such spaces by isometries. Thus the central objects of study are metric spaces in which every pair of points can be joined by an arc isometric to a compact interval of the real line and in which every triangle satisfies the CAT(O) inequality. This inequality encapsulates the concept of non-positive curvature in Riemannian geometry and allows one to reflect the same concept faithfully in a much wider setting - that of geodesic metric spaces. Because the CAT(O) condition captures the essence of non-positive curvature so well, spaces that satisfy this condition display many of the elegant features inherent in the geometry of non-positively curved manifolds. There is therefore a great deal to be said about the global structure of CAT(O) spaces, and also about the structure of groups that act on them by isometries - such is the theme of this book. 1 The origins of our study lie in the fundamental work of A. D. Alexandrov .

This volume presents an array of topics that introduce the reader to key ideas in active areas in geometry and topology. The material is presented in a way that both graduate students and researchers should find accessible and enticing. The topics covered range from Morse theory and complex geometry theory to geometric group theory, and are accompanied by exercises that are designed to deepen the reader's understanding and to guide them in exciting directions for future investigation.The editors, M.R. Bridson and S.M. Salamon, have each written an article and are accompanied by A.J. Berrick; M.C. Crabb and A.J.B Potter; M. Eastwood and J. Sawon; M.A. Guest; N.J. Hitchin and J.Seade.

Geometric group theory is a vibrant subject at the heart of modern mathematics. It is currently enjoying a period of rapid growth and great influence marked by a deepening of its fertile interactions with logic, analysis and large-scale geometry, and striking progress has been made on classical problems at the heart of cohomological group theory. This volume provides the reader with a tour through a selection of the most important trends in the field, including limit groups, quasi-isometric rigidity, non-positive curvature in group theory, and L2-methods in geometry, topology and group theory. Major survey articles exploring recent developments in the field are supported by shorter research papers, which are written in a style that readers approaching the field for the first time will find inviting.

The purpose of this book is to describe the global properties of complete simply­ connected spaces that are non-positively curved in the sense of A. D. Alexandrov and to examine the structure of groups that act properly on such spaces by isometries. Thus the central objects of study are metric spaces in which every pair of points can be joined by an arc isometric to a compact interval of the real line and in which every triangle satisfies the CAT(O) inequality. This inequality encapsulates the concept of non-positive curvature in Riemannian geometry and allows one to reflect the same concept faithfully in a much wider setting - that of geodesic metric spaces. Because the CAT(O) condition captures the essence of non-positive curvature so well, spaces that satisfy this condition display many of the elegant features inherent in the geometry of non-positively curved manifolds. There is therefore a great deal to be said about the global structure of CAT(O) spaces, and also about the structure of groups that act on them by isometries - such is the theme of this book. 1 The origins of our study lie in the fundamental work of A. D. Alexandrov .

The purpose of this book is to describe the global properties of complete simply­ connected spaces that are non-positively curved in the sense of A. D. Alexandrov and to examine the structure of groups that act properly on such spaces by isometries. Thus the central objects of study are metric spaces in which every pair of points can be joined by an arc isometric to a compact interval of the real line and in which every triangle satisfies the CAT(O) inequality. This inequality encapsulates the concept of non-positive curvature in Riemannian geometry and allows one to reflect the same concept faithfully in a much wider setting - that of geodesic metric spaces. Because the CAT(O) condition captures the essence of non-positive curvature so well, spaces that satisfy this condition display many of the elegant features inherent in the geometry of non-positively curved manifolds. There is therefore a great deal to be said about the global structure of CAT(O) spaces, and also about the structure of groups that act on them by isometries - such is the theme of this book. 1 The origins of our study lie in the fundamental work of A. D. Alexandrov .