Peter W. Michor – författare

This book lays the foundations of differential calculus in infinite dimensions and discusses those applications in infinite dimensional differential geometry and global analysis not involving Sobolev completions and fixed point theory. The approach is simple: a mapping is called smooth if it maps smooth curves to smooth curves. Up to Frechet spaces, this notion of smoothness coincides with all known reasonable concepts. In the same spirit, calculus of holomorphic mappings (including Hartogs' theorem and holomorphic uniform boundedness theorems) and calculus of real analytic mappings are developed. Existence of smooth partitions of unity, the foundations of manifold theory in infinite dimensions, the relation between tangent vectors and derivations, and differential forms are discussed thoroughly. Special emphasis is given to the notion of regular infinite dimensional Lie groups. Many applications of this theory are included: manifolds of smooth mappings, groups of diffeomorphisms, geodesics on spaces of Riemannian metrics, direct limit manifolds, perturbation theory of operators, and differentiability questions of infinite dimensional representations.

The literature on natural bundles and natural operators in differential geometry was, until now, scattered in the mathematical journal literature. This monograph collects and presents this material in a unified format. The book begins with an introduction to differential geometry stressing naturality and functionality, and the general theory of connections on arbitrary fibered manifolds. The functional approach to classical natural bundles is extended to a large class of geometrically interesting categories. Several methods of finding all natural operators are given and these are identified for many concrete geometric problems. After reducing each problem to a finite order setting, the remaining discussion is based on properties of jet spaces, and the basic structures from the theory of jets are therefore described. The relations of these geometric problems to corresponding questions in mathematical physics are brought out in several places in the book, and it closes with a comprehensive bibliography of over 300 items.

The literature on natural bundles and natural operators in differential geometry, was until now, scattered in the mathematical journal literature. This book is the first monograph on the subject, collecting this material in a unified presentation. The book begins with an introduction to differential geometry stressing naturality and functionality, and the general theory of connections on arbitrary fibered manifolds. The functional approach to classical natural bundles is extended to a large class of geometrically interesting categories. Several methods of finding all natural operators are given and these are identified for many concrete geometric problems. After reduction each problem to a finite order setting, the remaining discussion is based on properties of jet spaces, and the basic structures from the theory of jets are therefore described here too in a self-contained manner. The relations of these geometric problems to corresponding questions in mathematical physics are brought out in several places in the book, and it closes with a very comprehensive bibliography of over 300 items.This book is a timely addition to literature filling the gap that existed here and will be a standard reference on natural operators for the next few years.