A great book ... a necessary item in any mathematical library. --S. S. Chern, University of California A brilliant book: rigorous, tightly organized, and covering a vast amount of good mathematics. --Barrett O'Neill, University of California This is obviously a very valuable and well thought-out book on an important subject. --Andre Weil, Institute for Advanced Study The study of homogeneous spaces provides excellent insights into both differential geometry and Lie groups. In geometry, for instance, general theorems and properties will also hold for homogeneous spaces, and will usually be easier to understand and to prove in this setting. For Lie groups, a significant amount of analysis either begins with or reduces to analysis on homogeneous spaces, frequently on symmetric spaces. For many years and for many mathematicians, Sigurdur Helgason's classic Differential Geometry, Lie Groups, and Symmetric Spaces has been--and continues to be--the standard source for this material. Helgason begins with a concise, self-contained introduction to differential geometry. Next is a careful treatment of the foundations of the theory of Lie groups, presented in a manner that since 1962 has served as a model to a number of subsequent authors. This sets the stage for the introduction and study of symmetric spaces, which form the central part of the book. The text concludes with the classification of symmetric spaces by means of the Killing-Cartan classification of simple Lie algebras over $\mathbb{C}$ and Cartan's classification of simple Lie algebras over $\mathbb{R}$, following a method of Victor Kac. The excellent exposition is supplemented by extensive collections of useful exercises at the end of each chapter. All of the problems have either solutions or substantial hints, found at the back of the book. For this edition, the author has made corrections and added helpful notes and useful references. Sigurdur Helgason was awarded the Steele Prize for Differential Geometry, Lie Groups, and Symmetric Spaces and Groups and Geometric Analysis.

This book is intended to introduce researchers and graduate students to the concepts of causal symmetric spaces. To date, results of recent studies considered standard by specialists have not been widely published. This book seeks to bring this information to students and researchers in geometry and analysis on causal symmetric spaces.Includes the newest results in harmonic analysis including Spherical functions on ordered symmetric space and the holmorphic discrete series and Hardy spaces on compactly casual symmetric spacesDeals with the infinitesimal situation, coverings of symmetric spaces, classification of causal symmetric pairs and invariant cone fieldsPresents basic geometric properties of semi-simple symmetric spacesIncludes appendices on Lie algebras and Lie groups, Bounded symmetric domains (Cayley transforms), Antiholomorphic Involutions on Bounded Domains and Para-Hermitian Symmetric Spaces

This volume, the second of Helgason's impressive three books on Lie groups and the geometry and analysis of symmetric spaces, is an introduction to group-theoretic methods in analysis on spaces with a group action. The first chapter deals with the three two-dimensional spaces of constant curvature, requiring only elementary methods and no Lie theory. It is remarkably accessible and would be suitable for a first-year graduate course. The remainder of the book covers more advanced topics, including the work of Harish-Chandra and others, but especially that of Helgason himself. Indeed, the exposition can be seen as an account of the author's tremendous contributions to the subject.Chapter I deals with modern integral geometry and Radon transforms. The second chapter examines the interconnection between Lie groups and differential operators. Chapter IV develops the theory of spherical functions on semisimple Lie groups with a certain degree of completeness, including a study of Harish-Chandra's $c$-function. The treatment of analysis on compact symmetric spaces (Chapter V) includes some finite-dimensional representation theory for compact Lie groups and Fourier analysis on compact groups. Each chapter ends with exercises (with solutions given at the end of the book!) and historical notes.This book, which is new to the AMS publishing program, is an excellent example of the author's well-known clear and careful writing style. It has become the standard text for the study of spherical functions and invariant differential operators on symmetric spaces. Sigurdur Helgason was awarded the Steele Prize for Groups and Geometric Analysis and the companion volume, ""Differential Geometry, Lie Groups and Symmetric Spaces.""

The two parts of this sharply focused book, Hypergeometric and Special Functions and Harmonic Analysis on Semisimple Symmetric Spaces, are derived from lecture notes for the European School of Group Theory, a forum providing high-level courses on recent developments in group theory. The authors provide students and researchers with a thorough and thoughtful overview, elaborating on the topic with clear statements of definitions and theorems and augmenting these withtime-saving examples. An extensive set of notes supplements the text.Heckman and Schlichtkrull extend the ideas of harmonic analysis on semisimple symmetric spaces to embrace the theory of hypergeometric and spherical functions and show that the K-variant Eisenstein integrals for G/H are hypergeometric functions under this theory. They lead readers from the fundamentals of semisimple symmetric spaces of G/H to the frontier, including generalization, to the Riemannian case. This volume will interest harmonic analysts, those working on or applying the theory of symmetric spaces; it will also appeal to those with an interest in special functions.Extends ideas of harmonic analysis on symmetric spacesFirst treatment of the theory to include hypergeometric and spherical functionsLinks algebraic, analytic, and geometric methods

Among Riemannian manifolds, symmetric spaces (in the sense of Cartan) provide an abundant supply of elegant examples, the structures of which are enhanced by the rich theory of semisimple Lie groups. On these spaces, global analysis, particularly integration theory and partial differential operators, arises in a natural way by the requirement of geometric invariance. In Euclidean space these two subjects are related by the Fourier transform. The Peter-Weyl theory for compact groups, and Cartan's refinement of it, provides a way to develop harmonic analysis on compact symmetric spaces. The noncompact symmetric spaces, however, present a multitude of new and natural problems. This book is devoted to geometric analysis on noncompact Riemannian spaces. The exposition in this book is accessible to readers with modest background in semisimple Lie group theory. In particular, familiarity with representation theory is not needed.