This volume contains the proceedings of the AMS-IMS-SIAM Summer Research Conference on ``Geometric and Topological Invariants of Elliptic Operators,'' held in August 1988 at Bowdoin College. Some of the themes covered at the conference and appearing in the articles are: the use of more sophisticated asymptotic methods to obtain index theorems, the study of the $\eta$ invariant and analytic torsion, and index theory on open manifolds and foliated manifolds. The current state of noncommutative differential geometry, as well as operator algebraic and $K$-theoretic methods, are also presented in several the articles. This book will be useful to researchers in index theory, operator algebras, foliations, and mathematical physics. Topologists and geometers are also likely to find useful the view the book provides of recent work in this area. In addition, because of the expository nature of several of the articles, it will be useful to graduate students interested in working in these areas.

Modern theory of elliptic operators, or simply elliptic theory, has been shaped by the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem created 40 years ago. Reviewing elliptic theory over a broad range, 32 leading scientists from 14 different countries present recent developments in topology; heat kernel techniques; spectral invariants and cutting and pasting; noncommutative geometry; and theoretical particle, string and membrane physics, and Hamiltonian dynamics.The first of its kind, this volume is ideally suited to graduate students and researchers interested in careful expositions of newly-evolved achievements and perspectives in elliptic theory. The contributions are based on lectures presented at a workshop acknowledging Krzysztof P Wojciechowski's work in the theory of elliptic operators.

Modern theory of elliptic operators, or simply elliptic theory, has been shaped by the Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem created 40 years ago. Reviewing elliptic theory over a broad range, 32 leading scientists from 14 different countries present recent developments in topology; heat kernel techniques; spectral invariants and cutting and pasting; noncommutative geometry; and theoretical particle, string and membrane physics, and Hamiltonian dynamics.The first of its kind, this volume is ideally suited to graduate students and researchers interested in careful expositions of newly-evolved achievements and perspectives in elliptic theory. The contributions are based on lectures presented at a workshop acknowledging Krzysztof P Wojciechowski's work in the theory of elliptic operators.

This book treats the Atiyah-Singer index theorem using the heat equation, which gives a local formula for the index of any elliptic complex. Heat equation methods are also used to discuss Lefschetz fixed point formulas, the Gauss-Bonnet theorem for a manifold with smooth boundary, and the geometrical theorem for a manifold with smooth boundary. The author uses invariance theory to identify the integrand of the index theorem for classical elliptic complexes with the invariants of the heat equation.

This book is an introduction to several active research topics in Foliation Theory and its connections with other areas. It contains expository lectures showing the diversity of ideas and methods converging in the study of foliations. The lectures by Aziz El Kacimi Alaoui provide an introduction to Foliation Theory with emphasis on examples and transverse structures. Steven Hurder's lectures apply ideas from smooth dynamical systems to develop useful concepts in the study of foliations: limit sets and cycles for leaves, leafwise geodesic flow, transverse exponents, Pesin Theory and hyperbolic, parabolic and elliptic types of foliations. The lectures by Masayuki Asaoka compute the leafwise cohomology of foliations given by actions of Lie groups, and apply it to describe deformation of those actions. In his lectures, Ken Richardson studies the properties of transverse Dirac operators for Riemannian foliations and compact Lie group actions, and explains a recently proved index formula. Besides students and researchers of Foliation Theory, this book will be interesting for mathematicians interested in the applications to foliations of subjects like Topology of Manifolds, Differential Geometry, Dynamics, Cohomology or Global Analysis.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Workshop on Topology held at the Pontificia Universidade Catolica in Rio de Janeiro in January 1992. Bringing together about one hundred mathematicians from Brazil and around the world, the workshop covered a variety of topics in differential and algebraic topology, including group actions, foliations, low-dimensional topology, and connections to differential geometry. The main concentration was on foliation theory, but there was a lively exchange on other current topics in topology. The volume contains an excellent list of open problems in foliation research, prepared with the participation of some of the top world experts in this area. Also presented here are two surveys on group actions---finite group actions and rigidity theory for Anosov actions---as well as an elementary survey of Thurston's geometric topology in dimensions 2 and 3 that would be accessible to advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

This volume presents the proceedings of the Tel Aviv International Topology Conference held during the Special Topology Program at Tel Aviv University. The book is dedicated to Professor Mel Rothenberg on the occasion of his 65th birthday. His contributions to topology are well known-from the early work on triangulations to numerous papers on transformation groups and on geometric and analytic aspects of torsion theory. Current research related to those contributions are reported in this book. Coverage is included on the following topics: vanishing theorems for the Dirac operator, the theory of Reidemeister torsion (including infinite dimensional flat bundles), Nobikov-Shubin invariants of manifolds, topology of group actions, Lusternik-Schnirelman theory for closed 1-forms, finite type invariants of links and 3-manifolds, equivariant cobordisms, equivariant orientations and Thom isomorphisms, and more.

Luis Santalo Winter Schools are organized yearly by the Mathematics Department and the Santalo Mathematical Research Institute of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (FCEN). This volume contains the proceedings of the third Luis Santalo Winter School which was devoted to noncommutative geometry and held at FCEN July 26-August 6, 2010. Topics in this volume concern noncommutative geometry in a broad sense, encompassing various mathematical and physical theories that incorporate geometric ideas to the study of noncommutative phenomena. It explores connections with several areas including algebra, analysis, geometry, topology and mathematical physics. Bursztyn and Waldmann discuss the classification of star products of Poisson structures up to Morita equivalence. Tsygan explains the connections between Kontsevich's formality theorem, noncommutative calculus, operads and index theory. Hoefel presents a concrete elementary construction in operad theory. Meyer introduces the subject of $\mathrm{C}^*$-algebraic crossed products. Rosenberg introduces Kasparov's $KK$-theory and noncommutative tori and includes a discussion of the Baum-Connes conjecture for $K$-theory of crossed products, among other topics. Lafont, Ortiz, and Sanchez-Garcia carry out a concrete computation in connection with the Baum-Connes conjecture. Zuk presents some remarkable groups produced by finite automata. Mesland discusses spectral triples and the Kasparov product in $KK$-theory. Trinchero explores the connections between Connes' noncommutative geometry and quantum field theory. Karoubi demonstrates a construction of twisted $K$-theory by means of twisted bundles. Tabuada surveys the theory of noncommutative motives.

Spectral triples for nonunital algebras model locally compact spaces in noncommutative geometry. In the present text, the authors prove the local index formula for spectral triples over nonunital algebras, without the assumption of local units in our algebra. This formula has been successfully used to calculate index pairings in numerous noncommutative examples. The absence of any other effective method of investigating index problems in geometries that are genuinely noncommutative, particularly in the nonunital situation, was a primary motivation for this study and the authors illustrate this point with two examples in the text. In order to understand what is new in their approach in the commutative setting the authors prove an analogue of the Gromov-Lawson relative index formula (for Dirac type operators) for even dimensional manifolds with bounded geometry, without invoking compact supports. For odd dimensional manifolds their index formula appears to be completely new.

This volume contains the refereed proceedings of the Special Session on Geometric Analysis held at the AMS meeting in Philadelphia in October 1991. The term ``geometric analysis'' is being used with increasing frequency in the mathematical community, but its meaning is not entirely fixed. The papers in this collection should help to better define the notion of geometric analysis by illustrating emerging trends in the subject. The topics covered range over a broad spectrum: integral geometry, Radon transforms, geometric inequalities, microlocal analysis, harmonic analysis, analysis on Lie groups and symmetric spaces, and more. Containing articles varying from the expository to the technical, this book presents the latest results in a broad range of analytic and geometric topics.