Geometric Topology - Recent Developments

Geometric Topology can be defined to be the investigation ofglobal properties of a further structure (e.g.differentiable, Riemannian, complex,algebraic etc.) one canimpose on a topological manifold. At the C.I.M.E. session inMontecatini, in 1990, three courses of lectures were givenonrecent developments in this subject which is nowadaysemerging as one of themost fascinating and promising fieldsof contemporary mathematics. The notesof these courses arecollected in this volume and can be...
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Geometric Topology can be defined to be the investigation ofglobal properties of a further structure (e.g.differentiable, Riemannian, complex,algebraic etc.) one canimpose on a topological manifold. At the C.I.M.E. session inMontecatini, in 1990, three courses of lectures were givenonrecent developments in this subject which is nowadaysemerging as one of themost fascinating and promising fieldsof contemporary mathematics. The notesof these courses arecollected in this volume and can be described as: 1) thegeometry and the rigidity of discrete subgroups in Liegroups especially in the case of lattices in semi-simplegroups; 2) the study of the critical points of the distancefunction and its appication to the understanding of thetopology of Riemannian manifolds; 3) the theory of modulispace of instantons as a tool for studying the geometry oflow-dimensional manifolds.CONTENTS: J. Cheeger: Critical Points of Distance Functionsand Applications to Geometry.- M. Gromov, P. Pansu, Rigidityof Lattices: An Introduction.- Chr. Okonek: InstantonInvariants and Algebraic Surfaces.