The latest in this series of Oberwolfach conferences focussed on the interplay between structural probability theory and various other areas of pure and applied mathematics such as Tauberian theory, infinite-dimensional rotation groups, central limit theorems, harmonizable processes, and spherical data. Thus it was attended by mathematicians whose research interests range from number theory to quantum physics in conjunction with structural properties of probabilistic phenomena. This volume contains 5 survey articles submitted on special invitation and 25 original research papers.

The present volume contains the transactions of the lOth Oberwolfach Conference on "Probability Measures on Groups". The series of these meetings inaugurated in 1970 by L. Schmetterer and the editor is devoted to an intensive exchange of ideas on a subject which developed from the relations between various topics of mathematics: measure theory, probability theory, group theory, harmonic analysis, special functions, partial differential operators, quantum stochastics, just to name the most significant ones. Over the years the fruitful interplay broadened in various directions: new group-related structures such as convolution algebras, generalized translation spaces, hypercomplex systems, and hypergroups arose from generalizations as well as from applications, and a gradual refinement of the combinatorial, Banach-algebraic and Fourier analytic methods led to more precise insights into the theory. In a period of highest specialization in scientific thought the separated minds should be reunited by actively emphasizing similarities, analogies and coincidences between ideas in their fields of research. Although there is no real separation between one field and another - David Hilbert denied even the existence of any difference between pure and applied mathematics - bridges between probability theory on one side and algebra, topology and geometry on the other side remain absolutely necessary. They provide a favorable ground for the communication between apparently disjoint research groups and motivate the framework of what is nowadays called "Structural probability theory".

The series is devoted to the publication of monographs and high-level textbooks in mathematics, mathematical methods and their applications. Apart from covering important areas of current interest, a major aim is to make topics of an interdisciplinary nature accessible to the non-specialist. The works in this series are addressed to advanced students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical physics. In addition, it can serve as a guide for lectures and seminars on a graduate level. The series de Gruyter Studies in Mathematics was founded ca. 30 years ago by the late Professor Heinz Bauer and Professor Peter Gabriel with the aim to establish a series of monographs and textbooks of high standard, written by scholars with an international reputation presenting current fields of research in pure and applied mathematics. While the editorial board of the Studies has changed with the years, the aspirations of the Studies are unchanged. In times of rapid growth of mathematical knowledge carefully written monographs and textbooks written by experts are needed more than ever, not least to pave the way for the next generation of mathematicians. In this sense the editorial board and the publisher of the Studies are devoted to continue the Studies as a service to the mathematical community. Please submit any book proposals to Niels Jacob.

Generalising classical concepts of probability theory, the investigation of operator (semi)-stable laws as possible limit distributions of operator-normalized sums of i.i.d. random variable on finite-dimensional vector space started in 1969. Currently, this theory is still in progress and promises interesting applications. Parallel to this, similar stability concepts for probabilities on groups were developed during recent decades. It turns out that the existence of suitable limit distributions has a strong impact on the structure of both the normalizing automorphisms and the underlying group. Indeed, investigations in limit laws led to contractable groups and - at least within the class of connected groups - to homogeneous groups, in particular to groups that are topologically isomorphic to a vector space. Moreover, it has been shown that (semi)-stable measures on groups have a vector space counterpart and vice versa. The purpose of this book is to describe the structure of limit laws and the limit behaviour of normalized i.i.d. random variables on groups and on finite-dimensional vector spaces from a common point of view. This will also shed a new light on the classical situation. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to stability problems on vector spaces. Chapter II is concerned with parallel investigations for homogeneous groups and in Chapter III the situation beyond homogeneous Lie groups is treated. Throughout, emphasis is laid on the description of features common to the group- and vector space situation. Chapter I can be understood by graduate students with some background knowledge in infinite divisibility. Readers of Chapters II and III are assumed to be familiar with basic techniques from probability theory on locally compact groups.

A Scientific American article on chaos, see Crutchfield et al. (1986), illus trates a very persuasive example of recurrence. A painting of Henri Poincare, or rather a digitized version of it, is stretched and cut to produce a mildly distorted image of Poincare. The same procedure is applied to the distorted image and the process is repeated over and over again on the successively more and more blurred images. After a dozen repetitions nothing seems to be left of the original portrait. Miraculously, structured images appear briefly as we continue to apply the distortion procedure to successive images. After 241 iterations the original picture reappears, unchanged! Apparently the pixels of the Poincare portrait were moving about in accor dance with a strictly deterministic rule. More importantly, the set of all pixels, the whole portrait, was transformed by the distortion mechanism. In this exam ple the transformation seems to have been a reversible one since the original was faithfully recreated. It is not very farfetched to introduce a certain amount of randomness and irreversibility in the above example. Think of a random miscoloring of some pixels or of inadvertently giving a pixel the color of its neighbor. The methods in this book are geared towards being applicable to the asymp totics of such transformation processes. The transformations form a semigroup in a natural way; we want to investigate the long-term behavior of random elements of this semigroup.

Probability measures on algebraic-topological structures such as topological semi groups, groups, and vector spaces have become of increasing importance in recent years for probabilists interested in the structural aspects of the theory as well as for analysts aiming at applications within the scope of probability theory. In order to obtain a natural framework for a first systematic presentation of the most developed part of the work done in the field we restrict ourselves to prob ability measures on locally compact groups. At the same time we stress the non Abelian aspect. Thus the book is concerned with a set of problems which can be regarded either from the probabilistic or from the harmonic-analytic point of view. In fact, it seems to be the synthesis of these two viewpoints, the initial inspiration coming from probability and the refined techniques from harmonic analysis which made this newly established subject so fascinating. The goal of the presentation is to give a fairly complete treatment of the central limit problem for probability measures on a locally compact group. In analogy to the classical theory the discussion is centered around the infinitely divisible probability measures on the group and their relationship to the convergence of infinitesimal triangular systems.

This Handbook is intended as a desk reference for researchers, students and engineers working in various areas of solid mechanics and quantitative materials science. It contains a broad range of elasticity solutions. In particular, it covers the following topics: -Basic equations in various coordinate systems, -Green's functions for isotropic and anisotropic solids, -Cracks in two- and three-dimensional solids, -Eshelby's problems and related results, -Stress concentrations at inhomogeneities, -Contact problems, -Thermoelasticity. The solutions have been collected from a large number of monographs and research articles. Some of the presented results were obtained only recently and are not easily available. All solutions have been thoroughly checked and transformed to a userfriendly form.

The Heisenberg group comes from quantum mechanics and is the simplest non-commutative Lie group. While it belongs to the class of simply connected nilpotent Lie groups, it turns out that its special structure yields many results which (up to now) have not carried over to this larger class. This book is a survey of probabilistic results on the Heisenberg group. The emphasis lies on limit theorems and their relation to Brownian motion. Besides classical probability tools, non-commutative Fourier analysis and functional analysis (operator semigroups) comes in. The book is intended for probabilists and analysts interested in Lie groups, but given the many applications of the Heisenberg group, it will also be useful for theoretical phycisists specialized in quantum mechanics and for engineers.