Leonard Eisenbud

The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

AMS Chelsea Publishing
2007; 148 pp; hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-8218-4179-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-4179-2

This book provides a clear and logical path to understanding what quantum mechanics is about. It will be accessible to undergraduates with minimal mathematical preparation: all that is required is an open mind, a little algebra, and a first course in undergraduate physics.

Quantum mechanics is arguably the most successful physical theory. It makes predictions of incredible accuracy. It provides the structure underlying all of our electronic technology, and much of our mastery over materials. But compared with Newtonian mechanics, or even relativity, its teachings seem obscure--they have no counterpart in everyday experience, and they sometimes contradict our simplest notions of how the world works. A full understanding of the theory requires prior mastery of very advanced mathematics. This book aims at a different goal: to teach the reader, step by step, how the theory came to be and what, fundamentally, it is about.

Most students learn physics by learning techniques and formulas. This is especially true in a field like quantum mechanics, whose content often contradicts our common sense, and where it's tempting to retreat into mathematical formalism. This book goes behind the formalism to explain in direct language the conceptual content and foundations of quantum mechanics: the experiments that forced physicists to construct such a strange theory, and the essential elements of its strangeness.

Readership

Undergraduates, graduate students, and research mathematicians interested in quantum mechanics.

Table of Contents

The failure of classical theory
Consequences of a mistrust of theory
Properties of electrons, photons; The De Broglie relations
An analysis of electron diffraction
Heisenberg's principle of indeterminancy
Interpretations of the Heisenberg principle
Dynamical properties of microsystems
Determinism and state; Statistical determinism
Probability amplitudes; The superposition principle
Summary and comment
Index


Edited by: Peter Sarnak,
Princeton University, NJ, and Freydoon Shahidi, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

Automorphic Forms and Applications

IAS/Park City Mathematics Series, Volume: 12
2007; 427 pp; hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-8218-2873-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-2873-1

The theory of automorphic forms has seen dramatic developments in recent years. In particular, important instances of Langlands functoriality have been established. This volume presents three weeks of lectures from the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute Summer School on automorphic forms and their applications. It addresses some of the general aspects of automorphic forms, as well as certain recent advances in the field.

The book starts with the lectures of Borel on the basic theory of automorphic forms, which lay the foundation for the lectures by Cogdell and Shahidi on converse theorems and the Langlands-Shahidi method, as well as those by Clozel and Li on the Ramanujan conjectures and graphs. The analytic theory of GL(2)-forms and L-functions are the subject of Michel's lectures, while Terras covers arithmetic quantum chaos. The volume also includes a chapter by Vogan on isolated unitary representations, which is related to the lectures by Clozel.

This volume is recommended for independent study or an advanced topics course. It is suitable for graduate students and researchers interested in automorphic forms and number theory.

Titles in this series are co-published with the Institute for Advanced Study/Park City Mathematics Institute. Members of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) receive a 20% discount from list price.

Readership

Graduate students and research mathematicians interested in automorphic forms and number theory.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Armand Borel, Automorphic Forms on Reductive Groups
Automorphic forms on reductive groups
Bibliography
L. Clozel, Spectral Theory of Automorphic Forms
Spectral theory of automorphic forms
Mostly SL(2)
The spectral decomposition of L^2(G(\mathbb{Q})\backslash G(\mathbb{A})): Arthur's conjectures
Known bounds for the cuspidal spectrum and the Burger-Sarnak method
Applications: Control of the spectrum
All reductive adelic groups are tame
Bibliography
James W. Cogdell, L-functions and Converse Theorems for GL_n
L-functions and converse theorems for GL_n
Fourier expansions and multiplicity one
Eulerian integrals for GL_n
Local L-functions
Global L-functions
Converse theorems
Converse theorems and functoriality
Bibliography
Philippe Michel, Analytic Number Theory and Families of Automorphic L-functions
Analytic number theory and families of automorphic L-functions
Analytic properties of individual L-functions
A review of classical automorphic forms
Large sieve inequalities
The subconvexity problem
Some applications of subconvexity
Bibliography
Freydoon Shahidi, Langlands-Shahidi Method
Langlands-Shahidi Method
Basic concepts
Eisenstein series and L-functions
Functional equations and multiplicativity
Holomorphy and boundedness; Applications
Bibliography
Audrey Terras, Arithmetical Quantum Chaos
Arithmetical quantum chaos
Finite models
Three symmetric spaces
Bibliography
David A. Vogan, Jr., Isolated Unitary Representations
Isolated unitary representations
Bibliography
Wen-Ching Winnie Li, Ramanujan Graphs and Ramanujan Hypergraphs
Ramanujan graphs and Ramanujan hypergraphs
Ramanujan graphs and connections with number theory
Ramanujan hypergraphs
Bibliography


Svetlana Katok, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

P-adic Analysis Compared with Real

Student Mathematical Library, Volume: 37
2007; 152 pp; softcover
ISBN-10: 0-8218-4220-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-4220-1

The book gives an introduction to p-adic numbers from the point of view of number theory, topology, and analysis. Compared to other books on the subject, its novelty is both a particularly balanced approach to these three points of view and an emphasis on topics accessible to undergraduates. In addition, several topics from real analysis and elementary topology which are not usually covered in undergraduate courses (totally disconnected spaces and Cantor sets, points of discontinuity of maps and the Baire Category Theorem, surjectivity of isometries of compact metric spaces) are also included in the book. They will enhance the reader's understanding of real analysis and intertwine the real and p-adic contexts of the book.

The book is based on an advanced undergraduate course given by the author. The choice of the topic was motivated by the internal beauty of the subject of p-adic analysis, an unusual one in the undergraduate curriculum, and abundant opportunities to compare it with its much more familiar real counterpart. The book includes a large number of exercises. Answers, hints, and solutions for most of them appear at the end of the book. Well written, with obvious care for the reader, the book can be successfully used in a topic course or for self-study.

Readership

Undergraduate and graduate students interested in p-adic numbers

Contents


Serge Alinhac and Patrick Gerard, Universite Paris-Sud, Orsay, France
Translated by Stephen S. Wilson

Pseudo-differential Operators and the Nash-Moser Theorem

Graduate Studies in Mathematics,Volume: 82
2007; 168 pp; hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-8218-3454-1
ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-3454-1

This book presents two essential and apparently unrelated subjects. The first, microlocal analysis and the theory of pseudo-differential operators, is a basic tool in the study of partial differential equations and in analysis on manifolds. The second, the Nash-Moser theorem, continues to be fundamentally important in geometry, dynamical systems, and nonlinear PDE.

Each of the subjects, which are of interest in their own right as well as for applications, can be learned separately. But the book shows the deep connections between the two themes, particularly in the middle part, which is devoted to Littlewood-Paley theory, dyadic analysis, and the paradifferential calculus and its application to interpolation inequalities.

An important feature is the elementary and self-contained character of the text, to which many exercises and an introductory Chapter 0 with basic material have been added. This makes the book readable by graduate students or researchers from one subject who are interested in becoming familiar with the other. It can also be used as a textbook for a graduate course on nonlinear PDE or geometry.

Readership

Graduate students and research mathematicians interested in microlocal analysis, PDE, and geometry.

Table of Contents

General introduction
Notation and review of distribution theory
Pseudo-differential operators
Nonlinear dyadic analysis, microlocal analysis, energy estimates
Implicit function theorems
Bibliography
Main notation introduced
Index

Edited by: M. S. Birman and N. N. Uraltseva, St. Petersburg State University, Russia

Nonlinear Equations and Spectral Theory

American Mathematical Society Translations--Series 2, Volume: 220
2007; 244 pp; hardcover
ISBN-10: 0-8218-4209-9
ISBN-13: 978-0-8218-4209-6

This volume is devoted to the memory of the famous Saint Petersburg mathematician Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya. For many years she ran the Saint Petersburg Seminar on mathematical physics, which became a basis for the scientific school she created. The ten articles in the volume, written by students and colleagues of O. A. Ladyzhenskaya, are mainly devoted to boundary value problems for partial differential equations and to spectral problems for differential operators.

Readership

Graduate students and research mathematicians interested in partial differential equations.

Table of Contents

A. Arkhipova -- Quasireverse Holder inequalities in parabolic metric and their applications
M. Sh. Birman and N. D. Filonov -- Weyl asymptotics of the spectrum of the Maxwell operator with non-smooth coefficients in Lipschitz domains
A. M. Budylin and V. S. Buslaev -- Semiclassical pseudodifferential operators with discontinuous symbols and their applications to the problems of statistical physics
L. D. Faddeev -- What is complete integrability in quantum mechanics
N. Ivochkina -- Geometric evolution equations preserving convexity
B. A. Plamenevskii -- On spectral properties of elliptic problems in domains with cylindrical ends
N. Kikuchi and G. Seregin -- Weak solutions to the Cauchy problem for the Navier-Stokes equations satisfying the local energy inequality
V. A. Solonnikov -- Schauder estimates for the evolutionary generalized Stokes problem
T. A. Suslina -- Homogenization of a periodic parabolic Cauchy problem
N. N. Uraltseva -- Boundary estimates for solutions of elliptic and parabolic equations with discontinuous nonlinearities