On Casson S Invariant Of Oriented Homology Three Spheres

Casson's Invariant for Oriented Homology Three-Spheres

In the spring of 1985, A. Casson announced an interesting invariant of homology 3-spheres via constructions on representation spaces. This invariant generalizes the Rohlin invariant and gives surprising corollaries in low-dimensional topology. In the fall of that same year, Selman Akbulut and John McCarthy held a seminar on this invariant. These notes grew out of that seminar. The authors have tried to remain close to Casson's original outline and proceed by giving needed details, including an exposition of Newstead's results. They have often chosen classical concrete approaches over general methods. For example, they did not attempt to give gauge theory explanations for the results of Newstead; instead they followed his original techniques. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

On Casson's Invariant of Oriented Homology Three-spheres

Invariants of Homology 3-Spheres

Homology 3-sphere is a closed 3-dimensional manifold whose homology equals that of the 3-sphere. These objects may look rather special but they have played an outstanding role in geometric topology for the past fifty years. The book gives a systematic exposition of diverse ideas and methods in the area, from algebraic topology of manifolds to invariants arising from quantum field theories. The main topics covered are constructions and classification of homology 3-spheres, Rokhlin invariant, Casson invariant and its extensions, including invariants of Walker and Lescop, Herald and Lin invariants of knots, and equivariant Casson invariants, Floer homology and gauge-theoretical invariants of homology cobordism. Many of the topics covered in the book appear in monograph form for the first time. The book gives a rather broad overview of ideas and methods and provides a comprehensive bibliography. It will be appealing to both graduate students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics.