Bordism, Stable Homotopy and Adams Spectral Sequences

This book is a compilation of lecture notes that were prepared for the graduate course ``Adams Spectral Sequences and Stable Homotopy Theory'' given at The Fields Institute during the fall of 1995. The aim of this volume is to prepare students with a knowledge of elementary algebraic topology to study recent developments in stable homotopy theory, such as the nilpotence and periodicity theorems. Suitable as a text for an intermediate course in algebraic topology, this book provides a direct exposition of the basic concepts of bordism, characteristic classes, Adams spectral sequences, Brown-Peterson spectra and the computation of stable stems. The key ideas are presented in complete detail without becoming encyclopedic. The approach to characteristic classes and some of the methods for computing stable stems have not been published previously. All results are proved in complete detail. Only elementary facts from algebraic topology and homological algebra are assumed. Each chapter concludes with a guide for further study.