Representations and Invariants of the Classical Groups (Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications, Series Number 68)

More than half a century has passed since Weyl's "The Classical Groups" gave a unified picture of invariant theory that has retained its importance in mathematics and physics to the present day. This book presents an updated version of this theory together with many of the important recent developments. As a text for beginners, this book provides an introduction to the structure and finite-dimensional representation theory of the complex classical groups that requires only an abstract algebra course as a prerequisite. It makes abundant use of examples and exercises to explain concepts such as root systems, Weyl groups and highest weight theory. The more advanced reader will find an introduction to the structure and representations of complex reductive algebraic groups and their compact real forms. This book will also serve as a reference for the main results on tensor and polynomial invariants and the finite-dimensional representation theory of the classical groups. It will appeal to researchers in mathematics, statistics, physics and chemistry whose work involves symmetry groups, representation theory, invariant theory and algebraic group theory.