Embeddings in Manifolds

Embeddings in Manifolds
Author: Robert J. Daverman
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2009-10-14
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0821836978

A topological embedding is a homeomorphism of one space onto a subspace of another. The book analyzes how and when objects like polyhedra or manifolds embed in a given higher-dimensional manifold. The main problem is to determine when two topological embeddings of the same object are equivalent in the sense of differing only by a homeomorphism of the ambient manifold. Knot theory is the special case of spheres smoothly embedded in spheres; in this book, much more general spaces and much more general embeddings are considered. A key aspect of the main problem is taming: when is a topological embedding of a polyhedron equivalent to a piecewise linear embedding? A central theme of the book is the fundamental role played by local homotopy properties of the complement in answering this taming question. The book begins with a fresh description of the various classic examples of wild embeddings (i.e., embeddings inequivalent to piecewise linear embeddings). Engulfing, the fundamental tool of the subject, is developed next. After that, the study of embeddings is organized by codimension (the difference between the ambient dimension and the dimension of the embedded space). In all codimensions greater than two, topological embeddings of compacta are approximated by nicer embeddings, nice embeddings of polyhedra are tamed, topological embeddings of polyhedra are approximated by piecewise linear embeddings, and piecewise linear embeddings are locally unknotted. Complete details of the codimension-three proofs, including the requisite piecewise linear tools, are provided. The treatment of codimension-two embeddings includes a self-contained, elementary exposition of the algebraic invariants needed to construct counterexamples to the approximation and existence of embeddings. The treatment of codimension-one embeddings includes the locally flat approximation theorem for manifolds as well as the characterization of local flatness in terms of local homotopy properties.

Topological Embeddings

Topological Embeddings
Author:
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 333
Release: 1973-03-30
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0080873677

Topological Embeddings

Isometric Embedding of Riemannian Manifolds in Euclidean Spaces

Isometric Embedding of Riemannian Manifolds in Euclidean Spaces
Author: Qing Han
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2006
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0821840711

The question of the existence of isometric embeddings of Riemannian manifolds in Euclidean space is already more than a century old. This book presents, in a systematic way, results both local and global and in arbitrary dimension but with a focus on the isometric embedding of surfaces in ${\mathbb R}^3$. The emphasis is on those PDE techniques which are essential to the most important results of the last century. The classic results in this book include the Janet-Cartan Theorem, Nirenberg's solution of the Weyl problem, and Nash's Embedding Theorem, with a simplified proof by Gunther. The book also includes the main results from the past twenty years, both local and global, on the isometric embedding of surfaces in Euclidean 3-space. The work will be indispensable to researchers in the area. Moreover, the authors integrate the results and techniques into a unified whole, providing a good entry point into the area for advanced graduate students or anyone interested in this subject. The authors avoid what is technically complicated. Background knowledge is kept to an essential minimum: a one-semester course in differential geometry and a one-year course in partial differential equations.

The Disc Embedding Theorem

The Disc Embedding Theorem
Author: Stefan Behrens
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2021-07-15
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0192578383

Based on Fields medal winning work of Michael Freedman, this book explores the disc embedding theorem for 4-dimensional manifolds. This theorem underpins virtually all our understanding of topological 4-manifolds. Most famously, this includes the 4-dimensional Poincaré conjecture in the topological category. The Disc Embedding Theorem contains the first thorough and approachable exposition of Freedman's proof of the disc embedding theorem, with many new details. A self-contained account of decomposition space theory, a beautiful but outmoded branch of topology that produces non-differentiable homeomorphisms between manifolds, is provided, as well as a stand-alone interlude that explains the disc embedding theorem's key role in all known homeomorphism classifications of 4-manifolds via surgery theory and the s-cobordism theorem. Additionally, the ramifications of the disc embedding theorem within the study of topological 4-manifolds, for example Frank Quinn's development of fundamental tools like transversality are broadly described. The book is written for mathematicians, within the subfield of topology, specifically interested in the study of 4-dimensional spaces, and includes numerous professionally rendered figures.

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds

The Wild World of 4-Manifolds
Author: Alexandru Scorpan
Publisher: American Mathematical Soc.
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2005-05-10
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0821837494

What a wonderful book! I strongly recommend this book to anyone, especially graduate students, interested in getting a sense of 4-manifolds. --MAA Reviews The book gives an excellent overview of 4-manifolds, with many figures and historical notes. Graduate students, nonexperts, and experts alike will enjoy browsing through it. -- Robion C. Kirby, University of California, Berkeley This book offers a panorama of the topology of simply connected smooth manifolds of dimension four. Dimension four is unlike any other dimension; it is large enough to have room for wild things to happen, but small enough so that there is no room to undo the wildness. For example, only manifolds of dimension four can exhibit infinitely many distinct smooth structures. Indeed, their topology remains the least understood today. To put things in context, the book starts with a survey of higher dimensions and of topological 4-manifolds. In the second part, the main invariant of a 4-manifold--the intersection form--and its interaction with the topology of the manifold are investigated. In the third part, as an important source of examples, complex surfaces are reviewed. In the final fourth part of the book, gauge theory is presented; this differential-geometric method has brought to light how unwieldy smooth 4-manifolds truly are, and while bringing new insights, has raised more questions than answers. The structure of the book is modular, organized into a main track of about two hundred pages, augmented by extensive notes at the end of each chapter, where many extra details, proofs and developments are presented. To help the reader, the text is peppered with over 250 illustrations and has an extensive index.

Topology and Geometry

Topology and Geometry
Author: Glen E. Bredon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 580
Release: 1993-06-24
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 0387979263

This book offers an introductory course in algebraic topology. Starting with general topology, it discusses differentiable manifolds, cohomology, products and duality, the fundamental group, homology theory, and homotopy theory. From the reviews: "An interesting and original graduate text in topology and geometry...a good lecturer can use this text to create a fine course....A beginning graduate student can use this text to learn a great deal of mathematics."—-MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS

General Topology and Its Relations to Modern Analysis and Algebra 2

General Topology and Its Relations to Modern Analysis and Algebra 2
Author: Z. Frolík
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2014-05-12
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1483223531

General Topology and Its Relations to Modern Analysis and Algebra II is comprised of papers presented at the Second Symposium on General Topology and its Relations to Modern Analysis and Algebra, held in Prague in September 1966. The book contains expositions and lectures that discuss various subject matters in the field of General Topology. The topics considered include the algebraic structure for a topology; the projection spectrum and its limit space; some special methods of homeomorphism theory in infinite-dimensional topology; types of ultrafilters on countable sets; the compactness operator in general topology; and the algebraic generalization of the topological theorems of Bolzano and Weierstrass. This publication will be found useful by all specialists in the field of Topology and mathematicians interested in General Topology.

Introduction to Topological Manifolds

Introduction to Topological Manifolds
Author: John M. Lee
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2006-04-06
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 038722727X

Manifolds play an important role in topology, geometry, complex analysis, algebra, and classical mechanics. Learning manifolds differs from most other introductory mathematics in that the subject matter is often completely unfamiliar. This introduction guides readers by explaining the roles manifolds play in diverse branches of mathematics and physics. The book begins with the basics of general topology and gently moves to manifolds, the fundamental group, and covering spaces.

Beginner's Course In Topology

Beginner's Course In Topology
Author: D. B. Fuks
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 536
Release: 1984
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 9783540135777

This book is the result of reworking part of a rather lengthy course of lectures of which we delivered several versions at the Leningrad and Moscow Universities. In these lectures we presented an introduction to the fundamental topics of topology: homology theory, homotopy theory, theory of bundles, and topology of manifolds. The structure of the course was well determined by the guiding term elementary topology, whose main significance resides in the fact that it made us use a rather simple apparatus. tn this book we have retained {hose sections of the course where algebra plays a subordinate role. We plan to publish the more algebraic part of the lectures as a separate book. Reprocessing the lectures to produce the book resulted in the profits and losses inherent in such a situation: the rigour has increased to the detriment of the intuitiveness, the geometric descriptions have been replaced by formulas needing interpretations, etc. Nevertheless, it seems to us tha·t the book retains the main qualities of our lectures: their elementary, systematic, and pedagogical features. The preparation of the reader is assumed to be limi ted to the usual knowledge of set ·theory, algebra, and calculus which mathematics students should master after the first year and a half of studies. The exposition is accompanied by examples and exercises. We hope that the book can be used as a topology textbook.