Richard Beals - Böcker

The subject of special functions is often presented as a collection of disparate results, which are rarely organised in a coherent way. This book answers the need for a different approach to the subject. The authors' main goals are to emphasise general unifying principles coherently and to provide clear motivation, efficient proofs, and original references for all of the principal results. The book covers standard material, but also much more, including chapters on discrete orthogonal polynomials and elliptic functions. The authors show how a very large part of the subject traces back to two equations - the hypergeometric equation and the confluent hypergeometric equation - and describe the various ways in which these equations are canonical and special. Providing ready access to theory and formulas, this book serves as an ideal graduate-level textbook as well as a convenient reference.

This self-contained text, suitable for advanced undergraduates, provides an extensive introduction to mathematical analysis, from the fundamentals to more advanced material. It begins with the properties of the real numbers and continues with a rigorous treatment of sequences, series, metric spaces, and calculus in one variable. Further subjects include Lebesgue measure and integration on the line, Fourier analysis, and differential equations. In addition to this core material, the book includes a number of interesting applications of the subject matter to areas both within and outside the field of mathematics. The aim throughout is to strike a balance between being too austere or too sketchy, and being so detailed as to obscure the essential ideas. A large number of examples and 500 exercises allow the reader to test understanding, practise mathematical exposition and provide a window into further topics.

The description for this book, Calculus on Heisenberg Manifolds. (AM-119), will be forthcoming.

The subject of special functions is often presented as a collection of disparate results, rarely organized in a coherent way. This book emphasizes general principles that unify and demarcate the subjects of study. The authors' main goals are to provide clear motivation, efficient proofs, and original references for all of the principal results. The book covers standard material, but also much more. It shows how much of the subject can be traced back to two equations - the hypergeometric equation and confluent hypergeometric equation - and it details the ways in which these equations are canonical and special. There is extended coverage of orthogonal polynomials, including connections to approximation theory, continued fractions, and the moment problem, as well as an introduction to new asymptotic methods. There are also chapters on Meijer G-functions and elliptic functions. The final chapter introduces Painlevé transcendents, which have been termed the 'special functions of the twenty-first century'.

This book deals with the theory of linear ordinary differential operators of arbitrary order. Unlike treatments that focus on spectral theory, this work centers on the construction of special eigenfunctions (generalized Jost solutions) and on the inverse problem: the problem of reconstructing the operator from minimal data associated to the special eigenfunctions. In the second order case this program includes spectral theory and is equivalent to quantum mechanical scattering theory; the essential analysis involves only the bounded eigenfunctions. For higher order operators, bounded eigenfunctions are again sufficient for spectral theory and quantum scattering theory, but they are far from sufficient for a successful inverse theory.The authors give a complete and self-contained theory of the inverse problem for an ordinary differential operator of any order. The theory provides a linearization for the associated nonlinear evolution equations, including KdV and Boussinesq. The authors also discuss Darboux-Bäcklund transformations, related first-order systems and their evolutions, and applications to spectral theory and quantum mechanical scattering theory.Among the book's most significant contributions are a new construction of normalized eigenfunctions and the first complete treatment of the self-adjoint inverse problem in order greater than two. In addition, the authors present the first analytic treatment of the corresponding flows, including a detailed description of the phase space for Boussinesq and other equations.The book is intended for mathematicians, physicists, and engineers in the area of soliton equations, as well as those interested in the analytical aspects of inverse scattering or in the general theory of linear ordinary differential operators. This book is likely to be a valuable resource to many.Required background consists of a basic knowledge of complex variable theory, the theory of ordinary differential equations, linear algebra, and functional analysis. The authors have attempted to make the book sufficiently complete and self-contained to make it accessible to a graduate student having no prior knowledge of scattering or inverse scattering theory. The book may therefore be suitable for a graduate textbook or as background reading in a seminar.

Readers interested in complex analysis will appreciate the unique combination of topics and connections collected in this book. Beginning with a review of the main tools of complex analysis, harmonic analysis, and functional analysis, the authors go on to present multiple different, self-contained avenues to proceed.

Readers interested in complex analysis will appreciate the unique combination of topics and connections collected in this book. Beginning with a review of the main tools of complex analysis, harmonic analysis, and functional analysis, the authors go on to present multiple different, self-contained avenues to proceed.

More Explorations in Complex Functions is something of a sequel to GTM 287, Explorations in Complex Functions. The intended readership is the same, namely graduate students and researchers in complex analysis, independent readers, seminar attendees, or instructors for a second course in complex analysis.