This book offers a complete discussion of techniques and topics intervening in the mathematical treatment of quantum and semi-classical mechanics. It starts with a very readable introduction to symplectic geometry. Many topics are also of genuine interest for pure mathematicians working in geometry and topology.

These notes are based on a course entitled ``Symplectic Geometry and Geometric Quantization'' taught by Alan Weinstein at the University of California, Berkeley (fall 1992) and at the Centre Emile Borel (spring 1994). The only prerequisite for the course needed is a knowledge of the basic notions from the theory of differentiable manifolds (differential forms, vector fields, transversality, etc.). The aim is to give students an introduction to the ideas of microlocal analysis and the related symplectic geometry, with an emphasis on the role these ideas play in formalizing the transition between the mathematics of classical dynamics (hamiltonian flows on symplectic manifolds) and quantum mechanics (unitary flows on Hilbert spaces). These notes are meant to function as a guide to the literature. The authors refer to other sources for many details that are omitted and can be bypassed on a first reading.

This volume presents various aspects of the geometry of symplectic and Poisson manifolds, and applications in Hamiltonian mechanics and geometric quantization are indicated. Chapter 1 presents some general facts about symplectic vector space, symplectic manifolds and symplectic reduction. Chapter 2 deals with the study of Hamiltonian mechanics. Chapter 3 considers some standard facts concerning Lie groups and algebras which lead to the theory of momentum mappings and the Marsden--Weinstein reduction. Chapters 4 and 5 consider the theory and the stability of equilibrium solutions of Hamilton--Poisson mechanical systems. Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to the theory of geometric quantization. This leads, in Chapter 8, to topics such as foliated cohomology, the theory of the Dolbeault--Kostant complex, and their applications. A discussion of the relation between geometric quantization and the Marsden--Weinstein reduction is presented in Chapter 9. The final chapter considers extending the theory of geometric quantization to Poisson manifolds, via the theory of symplectic groupoids. Each chapter concludes with problems and solutions, many of which present significant applications and, in some cases, major theorems. For graduate students and researchers whose interests and work involve symplectic geometry and Hamiltonian mechanics.

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference "Colloque de Goometrie Symplectique et Physique Mathematique" which was held in Aix-en-Provence (France), June 11-15, 1990, in honor of Jean-Marie Souriau. The conference was one in the series of international meetings of the Seminaire Sud Rhodanien de Goometrie, an organization of geometers and mathematical physicists at the Universities of Avignon, Lyon, Mar seille, and Montpellier. The scientific interests of Souriau, one of the founders of geometric quantization, range from classical mechanics (symplectic geometry) and quantization problems to general relativity and astrophysics. The themes of this conference cover "only" the first two of these four areas. The subjects treated in this volume could be classified in the follow ing way: symplectic and Poisson geometry (Arms-Wilbour, Bloch-Ratiu, Brylinski-Kostant, Cushman-Sjamaar, Dufour, Lichnerowicz, Medina, Ouzilou), classical mechanics (Benenti, Holm-Marsden, Marle) , particles and fields in physics (Garcia Perez-Munoz Masque, Gotay, Montgomery, Ne'eman-Sternberg, Sniatycki) and quantization (Blattner, Huebschmann, Karasev, Rawnsley, Roger, Rosso, Weinstein). However, these subjects are so interrelated that a classification by headings such as "pure differential geometry, applications of Lie groups, constrained systems in physics, etc. ," would have produced a completely different clustering! The list of authors is not quite identical to the list of speakers at the conference. M. Karasev was invited but unable to attend; C. Itzykson and M. Vergne spoke on work which is represented here only by the title of Itzykson's talk (Surfaces triangulees et integration matricielle) and a summary of Vergne's talk.

Symplectic geometry is a central topic of current research in mathematics. Indeed, symplectic methods are key ingredients in the study of dynamical systems, differential equations, algebraic geometry, topology, mathematical physics and representations of Lie groups. This book is a true introduction to symplectic geometry, assuming only a general background in analysis and familiarity with linear algebra. It starts with the basics of the geometry of symplectic vector spaces. Then, symplectic manifolds are defined and explored. In addition to the essential classic results, such as Darboux's theorem, more recent results and ideas are also included here, such as symplectic capacity and pseudoholomorphic curves. These ideas have revolutionized the subject. The main examples of symplectic manifolds are given, including the cotangent bundle, Kähler manifolds, and coadjoint orbits. Further principal ideas are carefully examined, such as Hamiltonian vector fields, the Poisson bracket, and connections with contact manifolds. Berndt describes some of the close connections between symplectic geometry and mathematical physics in the last two chapters of the book. In particular, the moment map is defined and explored, both mathematically and in its relation to physics. He also introduces symplectic reduction, which is an important tool for reducing the number of variables in a physical system and for constructing new symplectic manifolds from old. The final chapter is on quantization, which uses symplectic methods to take classical mechanics to quantum mechanics. This section includes a discussion of the Heisenberg group and the Weil (or metaplectic) representation of the symplectic group. Several appendices provide background material on vector bundles, on cohomology, and on Lie groups and Lie algebras and their representations. Berndt's presentation of symplectic geometry is a clear and concise introduction to the major methods and applications of the subject, and requires only a minimum of prerequisites. This book would be an excellent text for a graduate course or as a source for anyone who wishes to learn about symplectic geometry.

This volume contains a state-of-the-art discussion of recent progress in a range of related topics in symplectic geometry and mathematical physics, including symplectic groupoids, geometric quantization, noncommutative differential geometry, equivariant cohomology, deformation quantization, topological quantum field theory, and knot invariants.

Symplectic geometry is very useful for formulating clearly and concisely problems in classical physics and also for understanding the link between classical problems and their quantum counterparts. It is thus a subject of interest to both mathematicians and physicists, though they have approached the subject from different viewpoints. This is the first book that attempts to reconcile these approaches. The authors use the uncluttered, coordinate-free approach to symplectic geometry and classical mechanics that has been developed by mathematicians over the course of the past thirty years, but at the same time apply the apparatus to a great number of concrete problems. Some of the themes emphasized in the book include the pivotal role of completely integrable systems, the importance of symmetries, analogies between classical dynamics and optics, the importance of symplectic tools in classical variational theory, symplectic features of classical field theories, and the principle of general covariance.

The goal of these notes is to provide a fast introduction to symplectic geometry for graduate students with some knowledge of differential geometry, de Rham theory and classical Lie groups. This text addresses symplectomorphisms, local forms, contact manifolds, compatible almost complex structures, Kaehler manifolds, hamiltonian mechanics, moment maps, symplectic reduction and symplectic toric manifolds. It contains guided problems, called homework, designed to complement the exposition or extend the reader's understanding. There are by now excellent references on symplectic geometry, a subset of which is in the bibliography of this book. However, the most efficient introduction to a subject is often a short elementary treatment, and these notes attempt to serve that purpose. This text provides a taste of areas of current research and will prepare the reader to explore recent papers and extensive books on symplectic geometry where the pace is much faster. For this reprint numerous corrections and clarifications have been made, and the layout has been improved.

The papers, some of which are in English, the rest in French, in this volume are based on lectures given during the meeting of the Seminare Sud Rhodanien de Geometrie (SSRG) organized at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1989. The SSRG was established in 1982 by geometers and mathematical physicists with the aim of developing and coordinating research in symplectic geometry and its applications to analysis and mathematical physics. Among the subjects discussed at the meeting, a special role was given to the theory of symplectic groupoids, the subject of fruitful collaboration involving geometers from Berkeley, Lyon, and Montpellier.

Approach your problems from the right It isn't that they can't see the solution. It end and begin with the answers. Then, is that they can't see the problem. one day, perhaps you will fmd the final question. G. K. Chesterton, The Scandal of Father Brown 'The Point of a Pin'. 'The Hermit Clad in Crane Feathers' in R. Van Gulik's The Chinese Maze Murders. Growing specialization and diversification have brought a host of monographs and textbooks on increasingly specialized topics. However, the 'tree' of knowledge of mathematics and related fields does not grow only by putting forth new branches. It also happens, quite often in fact, that branches which were thought to be completely disparate are suddenly seen to be related. Further, the kind and level of sophistication of mathematics applied in various sciences has changed drastically in recent years: measure theory is used (non-trivially) in regional and theoretical economics; algebraic geo metry interacts with physics; the Minkowsky lemma, coding theory and the structure of water meet one another in packing and covering theory; quantum fields, crystal defects and mathematical progmmming profit from homotopy theory; Lie algebras are relevant to fIltering; and prediction and electrical engineering can use Stein spaces.