Invariants for homology 3-spheres (Q699456)

Recall that an integer (or rational) homology 3-sphere is a closed 3-manifold with the integer (or rational) homology of the 3-sphere or, equivalently, with trivial (or finite) first homology group. As suggested by the title of the book, its main subject are invariants of integer and rational homology 3-spheres, mainly the Rokhlin invariant, the Casson invariant and its generalizations due to Walker and Lescop, Taube's gauge-theoretical approach to the Casson invariant, the instanton Floer homology and, in the last chapter, applications to the homology cobordism group of homology 3-spheres. In the first chapter, the main examples and constructions of homology 3-spheres are presented which serve then as the material for computations of invariants in the later chapters. The book is written in a style in the middle between a text book and a report or encyclopaedia (in accordance with its collocation). It describes the main constructions and methods in the field as well as the main ideas and sketches of proofs, avoiding in general the more technical aspects but commenting instead on different approaches and various generalizations and ramifications of a subject; in particular, there are numerous references to the more than 300 titles in the bibliography of the book. So this is in large part not a book to learn the subject in a systematic didactical way, but to get a quick review of the main constructions and ideas and a quick access to the relevant literature (in fact in a previous book, Lectures on the topology of 3-manifolds: An introduction to the Casson invariant (1999; Zbl 0932.57001), the author gave an introduction to some of the topics from a didactical point of view). Concluding, on little more than 200 pages the book presents a wealth of material which will make it useful for graduate students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics looking for information and orientation in a field of considerable interest in the last decades. For an introduction to quantum and finite type invariants of homology 3-spheres (only briefly mentioned in the present text) see also the recent monograph of \textit{T. Ohtsuki}, Quantum invariants: A study of knots, 3-manifolds and their sets, Ser. Knots Everything 29 (2002; Zbl 0991.57001).