The representation theory of Lie groups plays a central role in both clas sical and recent developments in many parts of mathematics and physics. In August, 1995, the Fifth Workshop on Representation Theory of Lie Groups and its Applications took place at the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba in Argentina. Organized by Joseph Wolf, Nolan Wallach, Roberto Miatello, Juan Tirao, and Jorge Vargas, the workshop offered expository courses on current research, and individual lectures on more specialized topics. The present vol ume reflects the dual character of the workshop. Many of the articles will be accessible to graduate students and others entering the field. Here is a rough outline of the mathematical content. (The editors beg the indulgence of the readers for any lapses in this preface in the high standards of historical and mathematical accuracy that were imposed on the authors of the articles. ) Connections between flag varieties and representation theory for real re ductive groups have been studied for almost fifty years, from the work of Gelfand and Naimark on principal series representations to that of Beilinson and Bernstein on localization. The article of Wolf provides a detailed introduc tion to the analytic side of these developments. He describes the construction of standard tempered representations in terms of square-integrable partially harmonic forms (on certain real group orbits on a flag variety), and outlines the ingredients in the Plancherel formula. Finally, he describes recent work on the complex geometry of real group orbits on partial flag varieties.

This book contains written versions of the lectures given at the PCMI Graduate Summer School on the representation theory of Lie groups. The volume begins with lectures by A. Knapp and P. Trapa outlining the state of the subject around the year 1975, specifically, the fundamental results of Harish-Chandra on the general structure of infinite-dimensional representations and the Langlands classification. Additional contributions outline developments in four of the most active areas of research over the past 20 years. The clearly written articles present results to date, as follows: R. Zierau and L. Barchini discuss the construction of representations on Dolbeault cohomology spaces. D. Vogan describes the status of the Kirillov-Kostant ``philosophy of coadjoint orbits'' for unitary representations. K. Vilonen presents recent advances in the Beilinson-Bernstein theory of ``localization''. And Jian-Shu Li covers Howe's theory of ``dual reductive pairs''. Each contributor to the volume presents the topics in a unique, comprehensive, and accessible manner geared toward advanced graduate students and researchers. Students should have completed the standard introductory graduate courses for full comprehension of the work. The book would also serve well as a supplementary text for a course on introductory infinite-dimensional representation theory.

The international summer school on Calculus of Variations and Geometric Evolution Problems was held at Cetraro, Italy, 1996. The contributions to this volume reflect quite closely the lectures given at Cetraro which have provided an image of a fairly broad field in analysis where in recent years we have seen many important contributions. Among the topics treated in the courses were variational methods for Ginzburg-Landau equations, variational models for microstructure and phase transitions, a variational treatment of the Plateau problem for surfaces of prescribed mean curvature in Riemannian manifolds - both from the classical point of view and in the setting of geometric measure theory.

The Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the National University of Singapore hosted a research program on “Representation Theory of Lie Groups” from July 2002 to January 2003. As part of the program, tutorials for graduate students and junior researchers were given by leading experts in the field.This invaluable volume collects the expanded lecture notes of those tutorials. The topics covered include uncertainty principles for locally compact abelian groups, fundamentals of representations of p-adic groups, the Harish-Chandra-Howe local character expansion, classification of the square-integrable representations modulo cuspidal data, Dirac cohomology and Vogan's conjecture, multiplicity-free actions and Schur-Weyl-Howe duality.The lecturers include Tomasz Przebinda from the University of Oklahoma, USA; Gordan Savin from the University of Utah, USA; Stephen DeBacker from Harvard University, USA; Marko Tadić from the University of Zagreb, Croatia; Jing-Song Huang from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong; Pavle Pandǽić from the University of Zagreb, Croatia; Chal Benson and Gail Ratcliff from East Carolina University, USA; and Roe Goodman from Rutgers University, USA.

In the last decade there has been an extraordinary confluence of ideas in mathematics and theoretical physics brought about by pioneering discoveries in geometry and analysis. The various chapters in this volume, treating the interface of geometric analysis and mathematical physics, represent current research interests. No suitable succinct account of the material is available elsewhere. Key topics include: * A self-contained derivation of the partition function of Chern- Simons gauge theory in the semiclassical approximation (D.H. Adams) * Algebraic and geometric aspects of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations in conformal field theory (P. Bouwknegt) * Application of the representation theory of loop groups to simple models in quantum field theory and to certain integrable systems (A.L. Carey and E. Langmann) * A study of variational methods in Hermitian geometry from the viewpoint of the critical points of action functionals together with physical backgrounds (A. Harris) * A review of monopoles in nonabelian gauge theories (M.K. Murray) * Exciting developments in quantum cohomology (Y. Ruan) * The physics origin of Seiberg-Witten equations in 4-manifold theory (S. Wu) Graduate students, mathematicians and mathematical physicists in the above-mentioned areas will benefit from the user-friendly introductory style of each chapter as well as the comprehensive bibliographies provided for each topic. Prerequisite knowledge is minimal since sufficient background material motivates each chapter.

In the fall of 1992 I was invited by Professor Changho Keem to visit Seoul National University and give a series of talks. I was asked to write a monograph based on my talks, and the result was published by the Global Analysis Research Center of that University in 1994. The monograph treated deficiency modules and liaison theory for complete intersections. Over the next several years I continually thought of improvements and additions that I would like to make to the manuscript, and at the same time my research led me in directions that gave me a fresh perspective on much of the material, especially in the direction of liaison theory. This re sulted in a dramatic change in the focus of this manuscript, from complete intersections to Gorenstein ideals, and a substantial amount of additions and revisions. It is my hope that this book now serves not only as an introduction to a beautiful subject, but also gives the reader a glimpse at very recent developments and an idea of the direction in which liaison theory is going, at least from my perspective. One theme which I have tried to stress is the tremendous amount of geometry which lies at the heart of the subject, and the beautiful interplay between algebra and geometry. Whenever possible I have given remarks and examples to illustrate this interplay, and I have tried to phrase the results in as geometric a way as possible.

This is the second volume of the procedings of the second European Congress of Mathematics. Volume I presents the speeches delivered at the Congress, the list of lectures, and short summaries of the achievements of the prize winners. Together with volume II it contains a collection of contributions by the invited lecturers. Finally, volume II also presents reports on some of the Round Table discussions. This two-volume set thus gives an overview of the state of the art in many fields of mathematics and is therefore of interest to every professional mathematician. Contributors: Vol. I: N. Alon, L. Ambrosio, K. Astala, R. Benedetti, Ch. Bessenrodt, F. Bethuel, P. Bjørstad, E. Bolthausen, J. Bricmont, A. Kupiainen, D. Burago, L. Caporaso, U. Dierkes, I. Dynnikov, L.H. Eliasson, W.T. Gowers, H. Hedenmalm, A. Huber, J. Kaczorowski, J. Kollár, D.O. Kramkov, A.N. Shiryaev, C. Lescop, R. März. Vol. II: J. Matousek, D. McDuff, A.S. Merkurjev, V. Milman, St. Müller, T. Nowicki, E. Olivieri, E. Scoppola, V.P. Platonov, J. Pöschel, L. Polterovich , L. Pyber, N. Simányi, J.P. Solovej, A. Stipsicz, G. Tardos, J.-P. Tignol, A.P. Veselov, E. Zuazua.

On September 1-7, 1996 a conference on Groups and Geometries took place in lovely Siena, Italy. It brought together experts and interested mathematicians from numerous countries. The scientific program centered around invited exposi tory lectures; there also were shorter research announcements, including talks by younger researchers. The conference concerned a broad range of topics in group theory and geometry, with emphasis on recent results and open problems. Special attention was drawn to the interplay between group-theoretic methods and geometric and combinatorial ones. Expanded versions of many of the talks appear in these Proceedings. This volume is intended to provide a stimulating collection of themes for a broad range of algebraists and geometers. Among those themes, represented within the conference or these Proceedings, are aspects of the following: 1. the classification of finite simple groups, 2. the structure and properties of groups of Lie type over finite and algebraically closed fields of finite characteristic, 3. buildings, and the geometry of projective and polar spaces, and 4. geometries of sporadic simple groups. We are grateful to the authors for their efforts in providing us with manuscripts in LaTeX. Barbara Priwitzer and Thomas Hintermann, Mathematics Editors of Birkhauser, have been very helpful and supportive throughout the preparation of this volume.

The Heisenberg group plays an important role in several branches of mathematics, such as representation theory, partial differential equations, number theory, several complex variables and quantum mechanics. This monograph deals with various aspects of harmonic analysis on the Heisenberg group, which is the most commutative among the non-commutative Lie groups, and hence gives the greatest opportunity for generalizing the remarkable results of Euclidean harmonic analysis. The aim of this text is to demonstrate how the standard results of abelian harmonic analysis take shape in the non-abelian setup of the Heisenberg group. Thangavelu’s exposition is clear and well developed, and leads to several problems worthy of further consideration. Any reader who is interested in pursuing research on the Heisenberg group will find this unique and self-contained text invaluable.

The aim of this book is to present the fundamental concepts and properties of the geodesic flow of a closed Riemannian manifold. The topics covered are close to my research interests. An important goal here is to describe properties of the geodesic flow which do not require curvature assumptions. A typical example of such a property and a central result in this work is Mane's formula that relates the topological entropy of the geodesic flow with the exponential growth rate of the average numbers of geodesic arcs between two points in the manifold. The material here can be reasonably covered in a one-semester course. I have in mind an audience with prior exposure to the fundamentals of Riemannian geometry and dynamical systems. I am very grateful for the assistance and criticism of several people in preparing the text. In particular, I wish to thank Leonardo Macarini and Nelson Moller who helped me with the writing of the first two chapters and the figures. Gonzalo Tomaria caught several errors and contributed with helpful suggestions. Pablo Spallanzani wrote solutions to several of the exercises. I have used his solutions to write many of the hints and answers. I also wish to thank the referee for a very careful reading of the manuscript and for a large number of comments with corrections and suggestions for improvement.