Geometric Analysis and Applications to Quantum Field Theory (Progress in Mathematics)

In recent years, there has been tremendous progress on the interface of geometry and mathematical physics. This book reflects the expanded articles of several lectures in these areas delivered at the University of Adelaide, with an audience of primarily graduate students. The aim of this volume is to provide surveys of recent progress without assuming too much prerequisite knowledge and with a comprehensive bibliography, so that researchers and graduate students in geometry and mathematical physics will benefit. The contributors cover a number of areas in mathematical physics. Chapter 1 offers a self-contained derivation of the partition function of Chern-Simons gauge theory in the semiclassical approximation. Chapter 2 considers the algebraic and geometric aspects of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations in conformal field theory, including their relation to the braid group, quantum groups and infinite dimensional Lie algebras. Chapter 3 surveys the application of the representation theory of loop groups to simple models in quantum field theory and to certain integrable systems. Chapter 4 examines the variational methods in Hermitian geometry from the viewpoint of the critical points of action functionals together with physical backgrounds. Chapter 5 is a review of monopoles in non-Abelian gauge theories and the various approaches to understanding them. Chapter 6 covers much of the exciting recent developments in quantum cohomology, including relative Gromov-Witten invariant, birational geometry, naturality and mirror symmetry. Chapter 7 explains the physics origin of the Seiberg-Witten equations in four-manifold theory and a number of important concepts in quantum field theory, such as vacuum, mass gap, (super)symmetry, anomalies and duality. The contributors include D.H. Adam, P. Bouwknegt, A.L. Carey, A. Harris, E. Langmann, M.K. Murray, Y. Ruan, and S. Wu D. H. Adams – Semiclassical Approximation in Chern-Simons Gauge Theory; P. Bouwknegt – The Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov Equations; A. L. Carey and E. Langmann – Loop Groups and Quantum Fields; A. Harris – Some Applications of Variational Calculus in Hermitian Geometry; M. K. Murray – Monopoles; Y. Ruan: On Gromov-Witten Invariants and Quantum Cohomology; and S. Wu – The Geometry and Physics of the Seiberg-Witten Equations.