Tudor Ratiu - Böcker

The purpose of this book is to provide core material in nonlinear analysis for mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and mathematical biologists. The main goal is to provide a working knowledge of manifolds, dynamical systems, tensors, and differential forms. Some applications to Hamiltonian mechanics, fluid mechanics, electromagnetism, plasma dynamics and control theory are given using both invariant and index notation. The prerequisites required are solid undergraduate courses in linear algebra and advanced calculus.

The lectures in this 2005 book are intended to bring young researchers to the current frontier of knowledge in geometrical mechanics and dynamical systems. They succinctly cover an unparalleled range of topics from the basic concepts of symplectic and Poisson geometry, through integrable systems, KAM theory, fluid dynamics, and symmetric bifurcation theory. The lectures are based on summer schools for graduate students and postdocs and provide complementary and contrasting viewpoints of key topics: the authors cut through an overwhelming amount of literature to show young mathematicians how to get to the core of the various subjects and thereby enable them to embark on research careers.

The purpose of this book is to provide core material in nonlinear analysis for mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and mathematical biologists. The main goal is to provide a working knowledge of manifolds, dynamical systems, tensors, and differential forms. Some applications to Hamiltonian mechanics, fluid me­ chanics, electromagnetism, plasma dynamics and control thcory arc given in Chapter 8, using both invariant and index notation. The current edition of the book does not deal with Riemannian geometry in much detail, and it does not treat Lie groups, principal bundles, or Morse theory. Some of this is planned for a subsequent edition. Meanwhile, the authors will make available to interested readers supplementary chapters on Lie Groups and Differential Topology and invite comments on the book's contents and development. Throughout the text supplementary topics are given, marked with the symbols ~ and {l:;J. This device enables the reader to skip various topics without disturbing the main flow of the text. Some of these provide additional background material intended for completeness, to minimize the necessity of consulting too many outside references. We treat finite and infinite-dimensional manifolds simultaneously. This is partly for efficiency of exposition. Without advanced applications, using manifolds of mappings, the study of infinite-dimensional manifolds can be hard to motivate.

The papers in this volume are an outgrowth of the lectures and informal discussions that took place during the workshop on "The Geometry of Hamiltonian Systems" which was held at MSRl from June 5 to 16, 1989. It was, in some sense, the last major event of the year-long program on Symplectic Geometry and Mechanics. The emphasis of all the talks was on Hamiltonian dynamics and its relationship to several aspects of symplectic geometry and topology, mechanics, and dynamical systems in general. The organizers of the conference were R. Devaney (co-chairman), H. Flaschka (co-chairman), K. Meyer, and T. Ratiu. The entire meeting was built around two mini-courses of five lectures each and a series of two expository lectures. The first of the mini-courses was given by A. T. Fomenko, who presented the work of his group at Moscow University on the classification of integrable systems. The second mini­ course was given by J. Marsden of UC Berkeley, who spoke about several applications of symplectic and Poisson reduction to problems in stability, normal forms, and symmetric Hamiltonian bifurcation theory. Finally, the two expository talks were given by A. Fathi of the University of Florida who concentrated on the links between symplectic geometry, dynamical systems, and Teichmiiller theory.

This book illustrates the broad range of Jerry Marsden’s mathematical legacy in areas of geometry, mechanics, and dynamics, from very pure mathematics to very applied, but always with a geometric perspective. Each contribution develops its material from the viewpoint of geometric mechanics beginning at the very foundations, introducing readers to modern issues via illustrations in a wide range of topics. The twenty refereed papers contained in this volume are based on lectures and research performed during the month of July 2012 at the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, in a program in honor of Marsden's legacy.The unified treatment of the wide breadth of topics treated in this book will be of interest to both experts and novices in geometric mechanics. Experts will recognize applications of their own familiar concepts and methods in a wide variety of fields, some of which they may never have approached from a geometric viewpoint. Novices may choose topics that interest them among the various fields and learn about geometric approaches and perspectives toward those topics that will be new for them as well.