Galois Theory Edwords

An introduction to one of the most celebrated theories of mathematics
Galois theory is one of the jewels of mathematics. Its intrinsic beauty, dramatic history, and deep connections to other areas of mathematics give Galois theory an unequaled richness. David Coxs Galois Theory helps readers understand not only the elegance of the ideas but also where they came from and how they relate to the overall sweep of mathematics.

This second edition addresses the question of which finite groups occur as Galois groups over a given field. In particular, this includes the question of the structure and the representations of the absolute Galois group of K, as well as its finite epimorphic images, generally referred to as the inverse problem of Galois theory.

This volume is an outgrowth of the research project "The Inverse Ga­ lois Problem and its Application to Number Theory" which was carried out in three academic years from 1999 to 2001 with the support of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (1) No. 11440013. In September, 2001, an international conference "Galois Theory and Modular Forms" was held at Tokyo Metropolitan University after some preparatory work­ shops and symposia in previous years. The title of this book came from that of the conference, and the authors were participants of those meet­ All of the articles here were critically refereed by experts.

This Lecture Notes volume is the fruit of two research-level summer schools jointly organized by the GTEM node at Lille University and the team of Galatasaray University (Istanbul): "Geometry and Arithmetic of Moduli Spaces of Coverings (2008)" and "Geometry and Arithmetic around Galois Theory (2009)". The volume focuses on geometric methods in Galois theory. The choice of the editors is to provide a complete and comprehensive account of modern points of view on Galois theory and related moduli problems, using stacks, gerbes and groupoids. It contains lecture notes on étale fundamental group and fundamental group scheme, and moduli stacks of curves and covers. Research articles complete the collection.

This textbook offers a unique introduction to classical Galois theory through many concrete examples and exercises of varying difficulty (including computer-assisted exercises).

The first part of this book provides an elementary and self-contained exposition of classical Galois theory and its applications to questions of solvability of algebraic equations in explicit form. The second part describes a surprising analogy between the fundamental theorem of Galois theory and the classification of coverings over a topological space. The third part contains a geometric description of finite algebraic extensions of the field of meromorphic functions on a Riemann surface and provides an introduction to the topological Galois theory developed by the author.

Classical Galois theory is a subject generally acknowledged to be one of the most central and beautiful areas in pure mathematics. This text develops the subject systematically and from the beginning, requiring of the reader only basic facts about polynomials and a good knowledge of linear algebra.