Quantum Groups And Noncommutative Geometry

This book is aimed at presenting different methods and perspectives in the theory of Quantum Groups, bridging between the algebraic, representation theoretic, analytic, and differential-geometric approaches. It also covers recent developments in Noncommutative Geometry, which have close relations to quantization and quantum group symmetries. The volume collects surveys by experts which originate from an acitvity at the Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in Bonn.

This textbook presents the second edition of Manin's celebrated 1988 Montreal lectures, which influenced a new generation of researchers in algebra to take up the study of Hopf algebras and quantum groups. In this expanded write-up of those lectures, Manin systematically develops an approach to quantum groups as symmetry objects in noncommutative geometry in contrast to the more deformation-oriented approach due to Faddeev, Drinfeld, and others.

Classical valuation theory has applications in number theory and class field theory as well as in algebraic geometry, e.g. in a divisor theory for curves. But the noncommutative equivalent is mainly applied to finite dimensional skewfields. Recently however, new types of algebras have become popular in modern algebra; Weyl algebras, deformed and quantized algebras, quantum groups and Hopf algebras, etc. The advantage of valuation theory in the commutative case is that it allows effective calculations, bringing the arithmetical properties of the ground field into the picture.

There are many approaches to noncommutative geometry and to its use in physics. This volume addresses the subject by combining the deformation quantization approach, based on the notion of star-product, and the deformed quantum symmetries methods, based on the theory of quantum groups.