Knots and primes. An introduction to arithmetic topology. Based on the Japanese original (Springer, 2009) (Q639228)

The analogy between number fields and function fields (which may be regarded as geometric objects) goes back to Gauss and Kronecker, and served as a rich source for conjectures in the last century. A different analogy between arithmetic and geometry was observed much more recently by Mazur, that of knots (continuous images of the circle \(S^1\) in \(S^3 = \mathbb R^3 \cup \{\infty\}\)) and rational prime numbers. The aim of the present book is showing that, in this setting, geometric objects such as loops, \(3\)-manifolds, linking numbers and the Alexander polynomial correspond to Frobenius automorphisms, number rings, Legendre symbols and the Iwasawa polynomial. After a brief introduction, the book presents (Chap. 2) the analogy between fundamental groups and Galois groups, (Chap. 3) knots and primes, (Chap. 4) linking numbers and Legendre symbols, (Chap. 5) decompositions of knots and primes, (Chap. 6, 10, 11) homology groups and ideal class groups, (Chap. 7) link groups and Galois groups of extensions with restricted ramification, (Chap. 8) Milnor invariants and residue symbols (such as Rédei's triple symbol), (Chap. 9) Alexander modules and Iwasawa modules, (Chap. 12) Reidemeister-Milnor torsion and Iwasawa's main conjecture, and (Chap. 13, 14) moduli spaces and deformations of representations. This is the first (and so far the only) textbook for readers interested in pursuing this analogy. Prerequisites are a good command of number theory and topology; the author recalls the definition of the Legendre symbol, but uses the notion of PL-manifolds without comments. On the other hand, rather deep theorems such as Artin-Verdier duality or the exact sequence of Tate-Poitou in class field theory are also presented and may look frightening for beginners. Those interested in a more low-brow approach will be well advised to have a look at the tutorial on knots and primes by \textit{C. Li} and \textit{C. Sia} (Harvard 2012) [\url{http://www.math.harvard.edu/~chaoli/tutorial2012/KnotsAndPrimes.html}], which is based on Morishita's book.