The book is a revised and updated version of the lectures given by the author at the University of Timi oara during the academic year 1990-1991. Its goal is to present in detail someold and new aspects ofthe geometry ofsymplectic and Poisson manifolds and to point out some of their applications in Hamiltonian mechanics and geometric quantization. The material is organized as follows. In Chapter 1 we collect some general facts about symplectic vector spaces, symplectic manifolds and symplectic reduction. Chapter 2 deals with the study ofHamiltonian mechanics. We present here the gen- eral theory ofHamiltonian mechanicalsystems, the theory ofthe corresponding Pois- son bracket and also some examples ofinfinite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanical systems. Chapter 3 starts with some standard facts concerning the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras and then continues with the theory ofmomentum mappings and the Marsden-Weinstein reduction. The theory of Hamilton-Poisson mechan- ical systems makes the object of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 js dedicated to the study of the stability of the equilibrium solutions of the Hamiltonian and the Hamilton- Poisson mechanical systems.We present here some of the remarcable results due to Holm, Marsden, Ra~iu and Weinstein. Next, Chapter 6 and 7 are devoted to the theory of geometric quantization where we try to solve, in a geometrical way, the so called Dirac problem from quantum mechanics. We follow here the construc- tion given by Kostant and Souriau around 1964.

It is known that to any Riemannian manifold (M, g ) , with or without boundary, one can associate certain fundamental objects. Among them are the Laplace-Beltrami opera­ tor and the Hodge-de Rham operators, which are natural [that is, they commute with the isometries of (M,g)], elliptic, self-adjoint second order differential operators acting on the space of real valued smooth functions on M and the spaces of smooth differential forms on M, respectively. If M is closed, the spectrum of each such operator is an infinite divergent sequence of real numbers, each eigenvalue being repeated according to its finite multiplicity. Spectral Geometry is concerned with the spectra of these operators, also the extent to which these spectra determine the geometry of (M, g) and the topology of M. This problem has been translated by several authors (most notably M. Kac). into the col­ loquial question "Can one hear the shape of a manifold?" because of its analogy with the wave equation. This terminology was inspired from earlier results of H. Weyl. It is known that the above spectra cannot completely determine either the geometry of (M , g) or the topology of M. For instance, there are examples of pairs of closed Riemannian manifolds with the same spectra corresponding to the Laplace-Beltrami operators, but which differ substantially in their geometry and which are even not homotopically equiva­ lent.

The book is a revised and updated version of the lectures given by the author at the University of Timi oara during the academic year 1990-1991. Its goal is to present in detail someold and new aspects ofthe geometry ofsymplectic and Poisson manifolds and to point out some of their applications in Hamiltonian mechanics and geometric quantization. The material is organized as follows. In Chapter 1 we collect some general facts about symplectic vector spaces, symplectic manifolds and symplectic reduction. Chapter 2 deals with the study ofHamiltonian mechanics. We present here the gen- eral theory ofHamiltonian mechanicalsystems, the theory ofthe corresponding Pois- son bracket and also some examples ofinfinite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanical systems. Chapter 3 starts with some standard facts concerning the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras and then continues with the theory ofmomentum mappings and the Marsden-Weinstein reduction. The theory of Hamilton-Poisson mechan- ical systems makes the object of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 js dedicated to the study of the stability of the equilibrium solutions of the Hamiltonian and the Hamilton- Poisson mechanical systems.We present here some of the remarcable results due to Holm, Marsden, Ra~iu and Weinstein. Next, Chapter 6 and 7 are devoted to the theory of geometric quantization where we try to solve, in a geometrical way, the so called Dirac problem from quantum mechanics. We follow here the construc- tion given by Kostant and Souriau around 1964.

The book is a revised and updated version of the lectures given by the author at the University of Timi oara during the academic year 1990-1991. Its goal is to present in detail someold and new aspects ofthe geometry ofsymplectic and Poisson manifolds and to point out some of their applications in Hamiltonian mechanics and geometric quantization. The material is organized as follows. In Chapter 1 we collect some general facts about symplectic vector spaces, symplectic manifolds and symplectic reduction. Chapter 2 deals with the study ofHamiltonian mechanics. We present here the gen- eral theory ofHamiltonian mechanicalsystems, the theory ofthe corresponding Pois- son bracket and also some examples ofinfinite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanical systems. Chapter 3 starts with some standard facts concerning the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras and then continues with the theory ofmomentum mappings and the Marsden-Weinstein reduction. The theory of Hamilton-Poisson mechan- ical systems makes the object of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 js dedicated to the study of the stability of the equilibrium solutions of the Hamiltonian and the Hamilton- Poisson mechanical systems.We present here some of the remarcable results due to Holm, Marsden, Ra~iu and Weinstein. Next, Chapter 6 and 7 are devoted to the theory of geometric quantization where we try to solve, in a geometrical way, the so called Dirac problem from quantum mechanics. We follow here the construc- tion given by Kostant and Souriau around 1964.

It is known that to any Riemannian manifold (M, g ) , with or without boundary, one can associate certain fundamental objects. Among them are the Laplace-Beltrami opera­ tor and the Hodge-de Rham operators, which are natural [that is, they commute with the isometries of (M,g)], elliptic, self-adjoint second order differential operators acting on the space of real valued smooth functions on M and the spaces of smooth differential forms on M, respectively. If M is closed, the spectrum of each such operator is an infinite divergent sequence of real numbers, each eigenvalue being repeated according to its finite multiplicity. Spectral Geometry is concerned with the spectra of these operators, also the extent to which these spectra determine the geometry of (M, g) and the topology of M. This problem has been translated by several authors (most notably M. Kac). into the col­ loquial question "Can one hear the shape of a manifold?" because of its analogy with the wave equation. This terminology was inspired from earlier results of H. Weyl. It is known that the above spectra cannot completely determine either the geometry of (M , g) or the topology of M. For instance, there are examples of pairs of closed Riemannian manifolds with the same spectra corresponding to the Laplace-Beltrami operators, but which differ substantially in their geometry and which are even not homotopically equiva­ lent.

The book is a revised and updated version of the lectures given by the author at the University of Timi oara during the academic year 1990-1991. Its goal is to present in detail someold and new aspects ofthe geometry ofsymplectic and Poisson manifolds and to point out some of their applications in Hamiltonian mechanics and geometric quantization. The material is organized as follows. In Chapter 1 we collect some general facts about symplectic vector spaces, symplectic manifolds and symplectic reduction. Chapter 2 deals with the study ofHamiltonian mechanics. We present here the gen- eral theory ofHamiltonian mechanicalsystems, the theory ofthe corresponding Pois- son bracket and also some examples ofinfinite-dimensional Hamiltonian mechanical systems. Chapter 3 starts with some standard facts concerning the theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras and then continues with the theory ofmomentum mappings and the Marsden-Weinstein reduction. The theory of Hamilton-Poisson mechan- ical systems makes the object of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 js dedicated to the study of the stability of the equilibrium solutions of the Hamiltonian and the Hamilton- Poisson mechanical systems.We present here some of the remarcable results due to Holm, Marsden, Ra~iu and Weinstein. Next, Chapter 6 and 7 are devoted to the theory of geometric quantization where we try to solve, in a geometrical way, the so called Dirac problem from quantum mechanics. We follow here the construc- tion given by Kostant and Souriau around 1964.