Roger Nussbaum

In the past several decades the classical Perron–Frobenius theory for nonnegative matrices has been extended to obtain remarkably precise and beautiful results for classes of nonlinear maps. This nonlinear Perron–Frobenius theory has found significant uses in computer science, mathematical biology, game theory and the study of dynamical systems. This is the first comprehensive and unified introduction to nonlinear Perron–Frobenius theory suitable for graduate students and researchers entering the field for the first time. It acquaints the reader with recent developments and provides a guide to challenging open problems. To enhance accessibility, the focus is on finite dimensional nonlinear Perron–Frobenius theory, but pointers are provided to infinite dimensional results. Prerequisites are little more than basic real analysis and topology.

The volume contains the texts of four courses, given by the authors at a summer school that sought to present the state of the art in the growing field of topological methods in the theory of o.d.e. (in finite and infinitedimension), and to provide a forum for discussion of the wide variety of mathematical tools which are involved. The topics covered range from the extensions of the Lefschetz fixed point and the fixed point index on ANR's, to the theory of parity of one-parameter families of Fredholm operators, and from the theory of coincidence degree for mappings on Banach spaces to homotopy methods for continuation principles. CONTENTS: P. Fitzpatrick: The parity as an invariant for detecting bifurcation of the zeroes of one parameter families of nonlinear Fredholm maps.- M. Martelli: Continuation principles and boundary value problems.- J. Mawhin: Topological degree and boundary value problems for nonlinear differential equations.- R. D. Nussbaum: The fixed point index and fixed point theorems.