Analytic and geometric study of stratified spaces (Q5949171)

In a rather intuitive terminology, stratified spaces are collections of differentiable manifolds which are glued together in an appropriate way. Many authors (J. N. Mather, R. Thom, H. Whitney, S. Łojasiewicz, H. Hironaka, T. Mostowski, et al.) have studied topological properties of stratified spaces. In this book, the author presents the deeper insight to the geometric-analytic structure of a stratified space. The monograph explains the theory of stratified spaces stating from the very beginning and therefore it fills the gap in the existing literature very well. In the first chapter the author defines the basic notions of decompositions and stratifications together with the most important stratification conditions and introduces a meaningful functional structure on stratified spaces which is appropriate for analytic and geometric considerations. In the second chapter it is shown that the functional structures introduced in the first chapter are suitable to do the differential geometry on stratified spaces. It is interesting to observe how many geometric structures can be transferred to stratified spaces with a smooth structure. The third chapter is devoted to the control theory introduced by J. N. Mather. Mather's ideas are supplemented by the notions of curvature moderate tubes and control data. An important class of stratified spaces defined by orbit spaces is presented in Chapter 4. The fifth chapter presents the deRham theory on stratified spaces with a smooth structure, while the last chapter of the book deals with the topological Hochschild homology.