Because of their significance in physics and chemistry, representation of Lie groups has been an area of intensive study by physicists and chemists, as well as mathematicians. This introduction is designed for graduate students who have some knowledge of finite groups and general topology, but is otherwise self-contained. The author gives direct and concise proofs of all results yet avoids the heavy machinery of functional analysis. Moreover, representative examples are treated in some detail.
The subject matter of compact groups is frequently cited in fields like algebra, topology, functional analysis, and theoretical physics. This book serves the dual purpose of providing a textbook on it for upper level graduate courses or seminars, and of serving as a source book for research specialists who need to apply the structure and representation theory of compact groups. After a gentle introduction to compact groups and their representation theory, the book presents self-contained courses on linear Lie groups, on compact Lie groups, and on locally compact abelian groups. Separate appended chapters contain the material for courses on abelian groups and on category theory. However, the thrust of the book points in the direction of the structure theory of not necessarily finite dimensional, nor necessarily commutative, compact groups, unfettered by weight restrictions or dimensional bounds. In the process it utilizes infinite dimensional Lie algebras and the exponential function of arbitrary compact groups. The first edition of 1998 and the second edition of 2006 were well received by reviewers and have been frequently quoted in the areas of instruction and research. For the present new edition the text has been cleaned of typographical flaws and the content has been conceptually sharpened in some places and polished and improved in others. New material has been added to various sections taking into account the progress of research on compact groups both by the authors and other writers. Motivation was provided, among other things, by questions about the structure of compact groups put to the authors by readers through the years following the earlier editions. Accordingly, the authors wished to clarify some aspects of the book which they felt needed improvement. The list of references has increased as the authors included recent publications pertinent to the content of the book.
This book is designed both as a textbook for high-level graduate courses and as a reference for researchers who need to apply the structure and representation theory of compact groups. A gentle introduction to compact groups and their representation theory is followed by self-contained courses on linear and compact Lie groups, and on locally compact abelian groups. This fourth edition was updated with the latest developments in the field.
Locally compact groups play an important role in many areas of mathematics as well as in physics. The class of locally compact groups admits a strong structure theory, which allows to reduce many problems to groups constructed in various ways from the additive group of real numbers, the classical linear groups and from finite groups. The book gives a systematic and detailed introduction to the highlights of that theory. In the beginning, a review of fundamental tools from topology and the elementary theory of topological groups and transformation groups is presented. Completions, Haar integral, applications to linear representations culminating in the Peter-Weyl Theorem are treated. Pontryagin duality for locally compact Abelian groups forms a central topic of the book. Applications are given, including results about the structure of locally compact Abelian groups, and a structure theory for locally compact rings leading to the classification of locally compact fields. Topological semigroups are discussed in a separate chapter, with special attention to their relations to groups. The last chapter reviews results related to Hilbert's Fifth Problem, with the focus on structural results for non-Abelian connected locally compact groups that can be derived using approximation by Lie groups. The book is self-contained and is addressed to advanced undergraduate or graduate students in mathematics or physics. It can be used for one-semester courses on topological groups, on locally compact Abelian groups, or on topological algebra. Suggestions on course design are given in the preface. Each chapter is accompanied by a set of exercises that have been tested in classes.
Because of their significance in physics and chemistry, representation of Lie groups has been an area of intensive study by physicists and chemists, as well as mathematicians. This introduction is designed for graduate students who have some knowledge of finite groups and general topology, but is otherwise self-contained. The author gives direct and concise proofs of all results yet avoids the heavy machinery of functional analysis. Moreover, representative examples are treated in some detail.
A Course in Abstract Harmonic Analysis is an introduction to that part of analysis on locally compact groups that can be done with minimal assumptions on the nature of the group. As a generalization of classical Fourier analysis, this abstract theory creates a foundation for a great deal of modern analysis, and it contains a number of elegant resul
Dealing with subject matter of compact groups that is frequently cited in fields like algebra, topology, functional analysis, and theoretical physics, this book now in its third revised and augmented edition has been conceived with the dual purpose of providing a text book for upper level graduate courses or seminars, and of serving as a source book for research specialists who need to apply the structure and representation theory of compact groups. After a gentle introduction to compact groups and their representation theory, the book presents self-contained courses on linear Lie groups, on compact Lie groups, and on locally compact abelian groups. However, the thrust of book points in the direction of the structure theory of infinite dimensional, not necessarily commutative compact groups, unfettered by weight restrictions or dimensional bounds. In the process it utilizes infinite dimensional Lie algebras and the exponential function of arbitrary compact groups."
The theory of group representations plays an important roie in modern mathematics and its applica~ions to natural sciences. In the compulsory university curriculum it is included as a branch of algebra, dealing with representations of finite groups (see, for example, the textbook of A. I. Kostrikin [25]). The representation theory for compact, locally compact Abelian, and Lie groups is co vered in graduate courses, concentrated around functional analysis. The author of the present boo~ has lectured for many years on functional analysis at Khar'kov University. He subsequently con tinued these lectures in the form of a graduate course on the theory of group representations, in which special attention was devoted to a retrospective exposition of operator theory and harmo nic analysis of functions from the standpoint of representation theory. In this approach it was natural to consider not only uni tary, but also Banach representations, and not only representations of groups, but also of semigroups.
