General Relativity has passed all experimental and observational tests to model the motion of isolated bodies with strong gravitational fields, though the mathematical and numerical study of these motions is still in its infancy. It is believed that General Relativity models our cosmos, with a manifold of dimensions possibly greater than four and debatable topology opening a vast field of investigation for mathematicians and physicists alike. Remarkable conjectures have been proposed, many results have been obtained but many fundamental questions remain open. In this monograph, aimed at...

In the last 20 years, the study of operator algebras has developed from a branch of functional analysis to a central field of mathematics with applications in both pure mathematics and mathematical physics. The theory was initiated by von Neumann and Murray as a tool for studying group representations and as a framework for quantum mechanics, and has since kept in touch with its roots in physics as a framework for quantum statistical mechanics and the formalism of algebraic quantum field theory. However, in 1981, the study of operator algebras took a new turn with the introduction by Vaughn...