Nikolai Saveliev - Böcker

No detailed description available for "Lectures on the Topology of 3-Manifolds".

Progress in low-dimensional topology has been very quick in the last three decades, leading to the solutions of many difficult problems. Among the earlier highlights of this period was Casson's λ-invariant that was instrumental in proving the vanishing of the Rohlin invariant of homotopy 3-spheres. The proof of the three-dimensional Poincaré conjecture has rendered this application moot but hardly made Casson's contribution less relevant: in fact, a lot of modern day topology, including a multitude of Floer homology theories, can be traced back to his λ-invariant.The principal goal of this book, now in its second revised edition, remains providing an introduction to the low-dimensional topology and Casson's theory; it also reaches out, when appropriate, to more recent research topics. The book covers some classical material, such as Heegaard splittings, Dehn surgery, and invariants of knots and links. It then proceeds through the Kirby calculus and Rohlin's theorem to Casson's invariant and its applications, and concludes with a brief overview of recent developments.The book will be accessible to graduate students in mathematics and theoretical physics familiar with some elementary algebraic and differential topology, including the fundamental group, basic homology theory, transversality, and Poincaré duality on manifolds.

Homology 3-sphere is a closed 3-dimensional manifold whose homology equals that of the 3-sphere. These objects may look rather special but they have played an outstanding role in geometric topology for the past fifty years. The book gives a systematic exposition of diverse ideas and methods in the area, from algebraic topology of manifolds to invariants arising from quantum field theories. The main topics covered are constructions and classification of homology 3-spheres, Rokhlin invariant, Casson invariant and its extensions, including invariants of Walker and Lescop, Herald and Lin invariants of knots, and equivariant Casson invariants, Floer homology and gauge-theoretical invariants of homology cobordism. Many of the topics covered in the book appear in monograph form for the first time. The book gives a rather broad overview of ideas and methods and provides a comprehensive bibliography. It will be appealing to both graduate students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics.