In this well-written presentation, motivated by numerous examples and problems, the authors introduce the basic theory of braid groups, highlighting several definitions that show their equivalence; this is followed by a treatment of the relationship between braids, knots and links. Important results then treat the linearity and orderability of the subject. Relevant additional material is included in five large appendices. Braid Groups will serve graduate students and a number of mathematicians coming from diverse disciplines.

In the present treatise progress in topological approach to Hall system physics is reported, including recent achievements in graphene. The new homotopy methods of cyclotron braid subgroups, originally introduced by the authors, turn out to be of particular convenience in order to grasp peculiarity of 2D charged systems upon magnetic field resulting in fractional Hall states. The identified cyclotron braids allow for natural recovery of Laughlin correlations from the first principles, without invoking any artificial constructions as composite fermions with flux tubes or vortices. Progress in understanding of the structure and role of composite fermions in Hall system is provided, which can also lead to some corrections of numerical results in energy minimization made within the traditional formulation of the composite fermion model. The crucial significance of carrier mobility, apart from interaction in creation of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE), is described and supported by recent graphene experiments. Recent advancement in the FQHE field including topological insulators and optical lattices is reviewed and commented upon in terms of the braid group approach. The braid group methods are presented from a more general point of view including proposition of pure braid group application. Book jacket.

Since the discovery that Artin's braid groups enjoy a left-invariant linear ordering, several different approaches have been used to understand this phenomenon. This text provides an account of those approaches, involving varied objects & domains as combinatorial group theory, self-distributive algebra & finite combinatorics.

The central theme of this study is Artin's braid group and the many ways that the notion of a braid has proved to be important in low-dimensional topology. In Chapter 1 the author is concerned with the concept of a braid as a group of motions of points in a manifold. She studies structural and algebraic properties of the braid groups of two manifolds, and derives systems of defining relations for the braid groups of the plane and sphere. In Chapter 2 she focuses on the connections between the classical braid group and the classical knot problem. After reviewing basic results she proceeds to an exploration of some possible implications of the Garside and Markov theorems. Chapter 3 offers discussion of matrix representations of the free group and of subgroups of the automorphism group of the free group. These ideas come to a focus in the difficult open question of whether Burau's matrix representation of the braid group is faithful. Chapter 4 is a broad view of recent results on the connections between braid groups and mapping class groups of surfaces. Chapter 5 contains a brief discussion of the theory of "plats." Research problems are included in an appendix.

In Chapter 6, we describe the concept of braid equivalence from the topological point of view. This will lead us to a new concept braid homotopy that is discussed fully in the next chapter. As just mentioned, in Chapter 7, we shall discuss the difference between braid equivalence and braid homotopy. Also in this chapter, we define a homotopy braid invariant that turns out to be the so-called Milnor number. Chapter 8 is a quick review of knot theory, including Alexander's theorem. While, Chapters 9 is devoted to Markov's theorem, which allows the application of this theory to other fields. This was one of the motivations Artin had in mind when he began studying braid theory. In Chapter 10, we discuss the primary applications of braid theory to knot theory, including the introduction of the most important invariants of knot theory, the Alexander polynomial and the Jones polynomial. In Chapter 11, motivated by Dirac's string problem, the ordinary braid group is generalized to the braid groups of various surfaces. We discuss these groups from an intuitive and diagrammatic point of view. In the last short chapter 12, we present without proof one theorem, due to Gorin and Lin [GoL] , that is a surprising application of braid theory to the theory of algebraic equations.

This invaluable book contains the collected papers of Prof Wei-Liang Chow, an original and versatile mathematician of the 20th Century. Prof Chow''s name has become a household word in mathematics because of the Chow ring, Chow coordinates, and Chow''s theorem on analytic sets in projective spaces. The Chow ring has many advantages and is widely used in intersection theory of algebraic geometry. Chow coordinates have been a very versatile tool in many aspects of algebraic geometry. Chow''s theorem OCo that a compact analytic variety in a projective space is algebraic OCo is justly famous; it shows the close analogy between algebraic geometry and algebraic number theory.About Professor Wei-Liang ChowThe long and distinguished career of Prof Wei-Liang Chow (1911OCo95) as a mathematician began in China with professorships at the National Central University in Nanking (1936OCo37) and the National Tung-Chi University in Shanghai (1946OCo47), and ultimately led him to the United States, where he joined the mathematics faculty of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, first as an associate professor from 1948 to 1950, then as a full professor from 1950 until his retirement in 1977.In addition to serving as chairman of the mathematics department at Johns Hopkins from 1955 to 1965, he was Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Mathematics from 1953 to 1977."

Contents:Notes on Subfactors and Statistical Mechanics (V F R Jones)Polynomial Invariants in Knot Theory (L H Kauffman)Algebras of Loops on Surfaces, Algebras of Knots, and Quantization (V G Turaev)Quantum Groups (L Faddeev et al.)Introduction to the Yang-Baxter Equation (M Jimbo)Integrable Systems Related to Braid Groups and Yang-Baxter Equation (T Kohno)The Yang-Baxter Relation: A New Tool for Knot Theory (Y Akutsu et al.)Akutsu-Wadati Link Polynomials from Feynman-Kauffman Diagrams (M-L Ge et al.)Quantum Field Theory and the Jones Polynomial (E Witten) Readership: Mathematical physicists.

This manuscript is devoted to classifying the isomorphism classes of the virtually cyclic subgroups of the braid groups of the 2-sphere. As well as enabling us to understand better the global structure of these groups, it marks an important step in the computation of the K-theory of their group rings. The classification itself is somewhat intricate, due to the rich structure of the finite subgroups of these braid groups, and is achieved by an in-depth analysis of their group-theoretical and topological properties, such as their centralisers, normalisers and cohomological periodicity. Another important aspect of our work is the close relationship of the braid groups with mapping class groups. This manuscript will serve as a reference for the study of braid groups of low-genus surfaces, and isaddressed to graduate students and researchers in low-dimensional, geometric and algebraic topology and in algebra. ​

This book presents cutting-edge topics in modern theoretical physics-quantum Hall systems-the subject of two Nobel Prizes in 1985 and 1998.