Based on the lecture notes of a graduate course given at MIT, this sophisticated treatment leads to a variety of current research topics and will undoubtedly serve as a guide to further studies.

This book treats the Atiyah-Singer index theorem using the heat equation, which gives a local formula for the index of any elliptic complex. Heat equation methods are also used to discuss Lefschetz fixed point formulas, the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a manifold with smooth boundary, and the geometrical theorem for a manifold with smooth boundary. The author uses invariance theory to identify the integrand of the index theorem for classical elliptic complexes with the invariants of the heat equation.

These notes are based on the course of lectures I gave at Harvard in the fall of 1964. They constitute a self-contained account of vector bundles and K-theory assuming only the rudiments of point-set topology and linear algebra. One of the features of the treatment is that no use is made of ordinary homology or cohomology theory. In fact, rational cohomology is defined in terms of K-theory.The theory is taken as far as the solution of the Hopf invariant problem and a start is mode on the J-homomorphism. In addition to the lecture notes proper, two papers of mine published since 1964 have been reproduced at the end. The first, dealing with operations, is a natural supplement to the material in Chapter III. It provides an alternative approach to operations which is less slick but more fundamental than the Grothendieck method of Chapter III, and it relates operations and filtration. Actually, the lectures deal with compact spaces, not cell-complexes, and so the skeleton-filtration does not figure in the notes. The second paper provides a new approach to K-theory and so fills an obvious gap in the lecture notes.

Vijay Kumar Patodi was a brilliant Indian mathematicians who made, during his short life, fundamental contributions to the analytic proof of the index theorem and to the study of differential geometric invariants of manifolds. This set of collected papers edited by Prof M Atiyah and Prof Narasimhan includes his path-breaking papers on the McKean-Singer conjecture and the analytic proof of Riemann-Roch-Hirzebruch theorem for Kähler manifolds. It also contains his celebrated joint papers on the index theorem and the Atiyah-Patodi-Singer invariant.

These lecture notes are intended as a non-technical overview of scattering theory.

A classic treatment of the Atiyah-Singer index theorem from the acclaimed Annals of Mathematics Studies series Princeton University Press is proud to have published the Annals of Mathematics Studies since 1940. One of the oldest and most respected series in science publishing, it has included many of the most important and influential mathematical works of the twentieth century. The series continues this tradition as Princeton University Press publishes the major works of the twenty-first century. To mark the continued success of the series, all books are available in paperback and as ebooks.

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