This work concerns the diffeomorphism groups of 3-manifolds, in particular of elliptic 3-manifolds. These are the closed 3-manifolds that admit a Riemannian metric of constant positive curvature, now known to be exactly the closed 3-manifolds that have a finite fundamental group. The (Generalized) Smale Conjecture asserts that for any elliptic 3-manifold M, the inclusion from the isometry group of M to its diffeomorphism group is a homotopy equivalence. The original Smale Conjecture, for the 3-sphere, was proven by J. Cerf and A. Hatcher, and N. Ivanov proved the generalized conjecture for many of the elliptic 3-manifolds that contain a geometrically incompressible Klein bottle. The main results establish the Smale Conjecture for all elliptic 3-manifolds containing geometrically incompressible Klein bottles, and for all lens spaces L(m,q) with m at least 3. Additional results imply that for a Haken Seifert-fibered 3 manifold V, the space of Seifert fiberings has contractible components, and apart from a small list of known exceptions, is contractible. Considerable foundational and background

This volume is a compilation of new results and surveys on the current state of some aspects of the foliation theory presented during the conference “FOLIATIONS 2012”. It contains recent materials on foliation theory which is related to differential geometry, the theory of dynamical systems and differential topology. Both the original research and survey articles found in here should inspire students and researchers interested in foliation theory and the related fields to plan his/her further research.

Ricci flow is an exciting subject of mathematics with diverse applications in geometry, topology, and other fields. It employs a heat-type equation to smooth an initial Riemannian metric on a manifold. The formation of singularities in the manifold's topology and geometry is a desirable outcome. Upon closer examination, these singularities often reveal intriguing structures known as Ricci solitons. This introductory book focuses on Ricci solitons, shedding light on their role in understanding singularity formation in Ricci flow and formulating surgery-based Ricci flow, which holds potential applications in topology. Notably successful in dimension 3, the book narrows its scope to low dimensions: 2 and 3, where the theory of Ricci solitons is well established. A comprehensive discussion of this theory is provided, while also establishing the groundwork for exploring Ricci solitons in higher dimensions. A particularly exciting area of study involves the potential applications of Ricci flow in comprehending the topology of 4-dimensional smooth manifolds. Geared towards graduate students who have completed a one-semester course on Riemannian geometry, this book serves as an ideal resource for related courses or seminars centered on Ricci solitons.

This book contains the proceedings of the conference Geometry & Topology Down Under, held July 11-22, 2011, at the University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia, in honour of Hyam Rubinstein. The main topic of the book is low-dimensional geometry and topology. It includes both survey articles based on courses presented at the conferences and research articles devoted to important questions in low-dimensional geometry. Together, these contributions show how methods from different fields of mathematics contribute to the study of 3-manifolds and Gromov hyperbolic groups. It also contains a list of favorite problems by Hyam Rubinstein.

This book contains expository papers that give an up-to-date account of recent developments and open problems in the geometry and topology of manifolds, along with several research articles that present new results appearing in published form for the first time. The unifying theme is the problem of understanding manifolds in low dimensions, notably in dimensions three and four, and the techniques include algebraic topology, surgery theory, Donaldson and Seiberg-Witten gauge theory,Heegaard Floer homology, contact and symplectic geometry, and Gromov-Witten invariants. The articles collected for this volume were contributed by participants of the Conference "Geometry and Topology of Manifolds" held at McMaster University on May 14-18, 2004 and are representative of the manyexcellent talks delivered at the conference.

This book presents papers that originally appeared in the Japanese journal Sugaku. The papers explore the relationship between number theory, algebraic geometry, and differential geometry.

Since the early 1980s, there has been an explosive growth in 4-manifold theory, particularly due to the influx of interest and ideas from gauge theory and algebraic geometry. This book offers an exposition of the subject from the topological point of view. It bridges the gap to other disciplines and presents classical but important topological techniques that have not previously appeared in the literature. Part I of the text presents the basics of the theory at the second-year graduate level and offers an overview of current research. Part II is devoted to an exposition of Kirby calculus, or handlebody theory on 4-manifolds. It is both elementary and comprehensive. Part III offers in-depth treatments of a broad range of topics from current 4-manifold research. Topics include branched coverings and the geography of complex surfaces, elliptic and Lefschetz fibrations, $h$-cobordisms, symplectic 4-manifolds, and Stein surfaces. The authors present many important applications. The text is supplemented with over 300 illustrations and numerous exercises, with solutions given in the book. I greatly recommend this wonderful book to any researcher in 4-manifold topology for the novel ideas, techniques, constructions, and computations on the topic, presented in a very fascinating way. I think really that every student, mathematician, and researcher interested in 4-manifold topology, should own a copy of this beautiful book. —Zentralblatt MATH This book gives an excellent introduction into the theory of 4-manifolds and can be strongly recommended to beginners in this field … carefully and clearly written; the authors have evidently paid great attention to the presentation of the material … contains many really pretty and interesting examples and a great number of exercises; the final chapter is then devoted to solutions of some of these … this type of presentation makes the subject more attractive and its study easier. —European Mathematical Society Newsletter

This volume consists of twenty peer-reviewed papers from the special session on pseudodifferential operators and the special session on generalized functions and asymptotics at the Eighth Congress of ISAAC held at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia in Moscow on August 22‒27, 2011. The category of papers on pseudo-differential operators contains such topics as elliptic operators assigned to diffeomorphisms of smooth manifolds, analysis on singular manifolds with edges, heat kernels and Green functions of sub-Laplacians on the Heisenberg group and Lie groups with more complexities than but closely related to the Heisenberg group, Lp-boundedness of pseudo-differential operators on the torus, and pseudo-differential operators related to time-frequency analysis. The second group of papers contains various classes of distributions and algebras of generalized functions with applications in linear and nonlinear differential equations, initial value problems and boundary value problems, stochastic and Malliavin-type differential equations. This second group of papers are related to the third collection of papers via the setting of Colombeau-type spaces and algebras in which microlocal analysis is developed by means of techniques in asymptotics. The volume contains the synergies of the three areas treated and is a useful complement to volumes 155, 164, 172, 189, 205 and 213 published in the same series in, respectively, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

In 1961 Smale established the generalized Poincare Conjecture in dimensions greater than or equal to 5 [129] and proceeded to prove the h-cobordism theorem [130]. This result inaugurated a major effort to classify all possible smooth and topological structures on manifolds of dimension at least 5. By the mid 1970's the main outlines of this theory were complete, and explicit answers (especially concerning simply connected manifolds) as well as general qualitative results had been obtained. As an example of such a qualitative result, a closed, simply connected manifold of dimension 2: 5 is determined up to finitely many diffeomorphism possibilities by its homotopy type and its Pontrjagin classes. There are similar results for self-diffeomorphisms, which, at least in the simply connected case, say that the group of self-diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold M of dimension at least 5 is commensurate with an arithmetic subgroup of the linear algebraic group of all automorphisms of its so-called rational minimal model which preserve the Pontrjagin classes [131]. Once the high dimensional theory was in good shape, attention shifted to the remaining, and seemingly exceptional, dimensions 3 and 4. The theory behind the results for manifolds of dimension at least 5 does not carryover to manifolds of these low dimensions, essentially because there is no longer enough room to maneuver. Thus new ideas are necessary to study manifolds of these "low" dimensions.

William Thurston's work has had a profound influence on mathematics. He connected whole mathematical subjects in entirely new ways and changed the way mathematicians think about geometry, topology, foliations, group theory, dynamical systems, and the way these areas interact. His emphasis on understanding and imagination in mathematical learning and thinking are integral elements of his distinctive legacy. This four-part collection brings together in one place Thurston's major writings, many of which are appearing in publication for the first time. Volumes I–III contain commentaries by the Editors. Volume IV includes a preface by Steven P. Kerckhoff. Volume IV contains Thurston's highly influential, though previously unpublished, 1977–78 Princeton Course Notes on the Geometry and Topology of 3-manifolds. It is an indispensable part of the Thurston collection but can also be used on its own as a textbook or for self-study.