Develops the mathematical background and recent results on the Inverse Galois Problem.

Assuming little technical background, the author presents the strong analogies between these two concepts starting at an elementary level.

This volume is the offspring of a week-long workshop on "Galois groups over Q and related topics," which was held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute during the week March 23-27, 1987. The organizing committee consisted of Kenneth Ribet (chairman), Yasutaka Ihara, and Jean-Pierre Serre. The conference focused on three principal themes: 1. Extensions of Q with finite simple Galois groups. 2. Galois actions on fundamental groups, nilpotent extensions of Q arising from Fermat curves, and the interplay between Gauss sums and cyclotomic units. 3. Representations of Gal(Q/Q) with values in GL(2)j deformations and connections with modular forms. Here is a summary of the conference program: • G. Anderson: "Gauss sums, circular units and the simplex" • G. Anderson and Y. Ihara: "Galois actions on 11"1 ( ••• ) and higher circular units" • D. Blasius: "Maass forms and Galois representations" • P. Deligne: "Galois action on 1I"1(P-{0, 1, oo}) and Hodge analogue" • W. Feit: "Some Galois groups over number fields" • Y. Ihara: "Arithmetic aspect of Galois actions on 1I"1(P - {O, 1, oo})" - survey talk • U. Jannsen: "Galois cohomology of i-adic representations" • B. Matzat: - "Rationality criteria for Galois extensions" - "How to construct polynomials with Galois group Mll over Q" • B. Mazur: "Deforming GL(2) Galois representations" • K. Ribet: "Lowering the level of modular representations of Gal( Q/ Q)" • J-P. Serre: - Introductory Lecture - "Degree 2 modular representations of Gal(Q/Q)" • J.

Helmut Koch's classic is now available in English. Competently translated by Franz Lemmermeyer, it introduces the theory of pro-p groups and their cohomology. The book contains a postscript on the recent development of the field written by H. Koch and F. Lemmermeyer, along with many additional recent references.

Foundations of Galois Theory is an introduction to group theory, field theory, and the basic concepts of abstract algebra. The text is divided into two parts. Part I presents the elements of Galois Theory, in which chapters are devoted to the presentation of the elements of field theory, facts from the theory of groups, and the applications of Galois Theory. Part II focuses on the development of general Galois Theory and its use in the solution of equations by radicals. Equations that are solvable by radicals; the construction of equations solvable by radicals; and the unsolvability by radicals of the general equation of degree n ? 5 are discussed as well. Mathematicians, physicists, researchers, and students of mathematics will find this book highly useful.

This book is devoted to the structure of the absolute Galois groups of certain algebraic extensions of the field of rational numbers. Its main result, a theorem proved by the authors and Florian Pop in 2012, describes the absolute Galois group of distinguished semi-local algebraic (and other) extensions of the rational numbers as free products of the free profinite group on countably many generators and local Galois groups. This is an instance of a positive answer to the generalized inverse problem of Galois theory. Adopting both an arithmetic and probabilistic approach, the book carefully sets out the preliminary material needed to prove the main theorem and its supporting results. In addition, it includes a description of Melnikov's construction of free products of profinite groups and, for the first time in book form, an account of a generalization of the theory of free products of profinite groups and their subgroups. The book will be of interest to researchers in field arithmetic, Galois theory and profinite groups.