and background material.- Introduction,.- A historical introduction to solitons and Bäcklund tranformations,.- Harmonic maps into symmetric spaces and integrable systems,.- The geometry of surfaces.- The affine Toda equations and miminal surfaces,.- Surfaces in terms of 2 by 2 matrices: Old and new integrable cases,.- Integrable systems, harmonic maps and the classical theory of solitons,.- Sigma and chiral models.- The principal chiral model as an integrable system,.- 2-dimensional nonlinear sigma models: Zero curvature and Poisson structure,.- Sigma models in 2 + 1 dimensions,.- The algebraic approach.- Infinite dimensional Lie groups and the two-dimensional Toda lattice,.- Harmonic maps via Adler-Kostant-Symes theory,.- Loop group actions on harmonic maps and their applications,.- The twistor approach.- Twistors, nilpotent orbits and harmonic maps,.
