Stochastic partial differential equations in infinite dimensional spaces

While this book was being printed, the news of Michel Metivier's premature death arrived at the Scuola Normale Superiore. The present book originated from a series of lectures Michel Metivier held at the Scuola Normale during the years 1986 and 1987. The subject of these lectures was the analysis of weak solutions to stochastic partial equations, a topic that requires a deep knowledge of nonlinear functional analysis and probability. A vast literature, involving a number of applications to various scientific fields is devoted to this problem and many different approaches have been developed. In his lectures Metivier gave a new treatment of the subject, which unifies the theory and provides several new results. The power of his new approach has not yet been fully exploited and would certainly have led him to further interesting developments. For this reason, besides the invaluable enthusiasm in life he was able to communicate to everybody, his recent premature departure is even more painful.