An invitation to quantum cohomology

Joachim Kock, Israel Vainsencher

"This book is an elementary introduction to stable maps and quantum cohomology, starting with an introduction to stable pointed curves, and culminating with a proof of the associativity of the quantum product. The viewpoint is mostly that of enumerative geometry, and the red thread of the exposition is the problem of counting rational plane curves. Kontsevich's formula in initially established in the framework of classical enumerative geometry, then as a statement about reconstruction for Gromov-Witten invariants, and finally, using generating functions, as a special case of the associativity of the quantum product." "Emphasis is given throughout the exposition of examples, heuristic discussions, and simple applications of the basic tools to best convey the intuition behind the subject. The book demystifies these new quantum techniques by showing how they fit into classical algebraic...