This graduate-level text provides a thorough grounding in the representation theory of finite groups over fields and rings. The book provides a balanced and comprehensive account of the subject, detailing the methods needed to analyze representations that arise in many areas of mathematics. Key topics include the construction and use of character tables, the role of induction and restriction, projective and simple modules for group algebras, indecomposable representations, Brauer characters, and block theory. This classroom-tested text provides motivation through a large number of worked examples, with exercises at the end of each chapter that test the reader's knowledge, provide further examples and practice, and include results not proven in the text. Prerequisites include a graduate course in abstract algebra, and familiarity with the properties of groups, rings, field extensions, and linear algebra.

This book is intended to present group representation theory at a level accessible to mature undergraduate students and beginning graduate students. This is achieved by mainly keeping the required background to the level of undergraduate linear algebra, group theory and very basic ring theory. Module theory and Wedderburn theory, as well as tensor products, are deliberately avoided. Instead, we take an approach based on discrete Fourier Analysis. Applications to the spectral theory of graphs are given to help the student appreciate the usefulness of the subject. A number of exercises are included. This book is intended for a 3rd/4th undergraduate course or an introductory graduate course on group representation theory. However, it can also be used as a reference for workers in all areas of mathematics and statistics.

``We explore widely in the valley of ordinary representations, and we take the reader over the mountain pass leading to the valley of modular representations, to a point from which (s)he can survey this valley, but we do not attempt to widely explore it. We hope the reader will be sufficiently fascinated by the scenery to further explore both valleys on his/her own.'' --from the Preface Representation theory plays important roles in geometry, algebra, analysis, and mathematical physics. In particular, representation theory has been one of the great tools in the study and classification of finite groups. There are some beautiful results that come from representation theory: Frobenius's Theorem, Burnside's Theorem, Artin's Theorem, Brauer's Theorem--all of which are covered in this textbook. Some seem uninspiring at first, but prove to be quite useful. Others are clearly deep from the outset. And when a group (finite or otherwise) acts on something else (as a set of symmetries, for example), one ends up with a natural representation of the group. This book is an introduction to the representation theory of finite groups from an algebraic point of view, regarding representations as modules over the group algebra. The approach is to develop the requisite algebra in reasonable generality and then to specialize it to the case of group representations. Methods and results particular to group representations, such as characters and induced representations, are developed in depth. Arithmetic comes into play when considering the field of definition of a representation, especially for subfields of the complex numbers. The book has an extensive development of the semisimple case, where the characteristic of the field is zero or is prime to the order of the group, and builds the foundations of the modular case, where the characteristic of the field divides the order of the group. The book assumes only the material of a standard graduate course in algebra. It is suitable as a text for a year-long graduate course. The subject is of interest to students of algebra, number theory and algebraic geometry. The systematic treatment presented here makes the book also valuable as a reference.

Very roughly speaking, representation theory studies symmetry in linear spaces. It is a beautiful mathematical subject which has many applications, ranging from number theory and combinatorics to geometry, probability theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum field theory. The goal of this book is to give a ``holistic'' introduction to representation theory, presenting it as a unified subject which studies representations of associative algebras and treating the representation theories of groups, Lie algebras, and quivers as special cases. Using this approach, the book covers a number of standard topics in the representation theories of these structures. Theoretical material in the book is supplemented by many problems and exercises which touch upon a lot of additional topics; the more difficult exercises are provided with hints. The book is designed as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. It should be accessible to students with a strong background in linear algebra and a basic knowledge of abstract algebra.

Introducing finite-dimensional representations of Lie groups and Lie algebras, this example-oriented book works from representation theory of finite groups, through Lie groups and Lie algrbras to the finite dimensional representations of the classical groups.

A concise treatment of topics from group theory and representation theory for use in a one-term course. Focussing on the non-commutative side of the field, this advanced textbook emphasizes the general linear group as the most important group and example. Readers are expected to be familiar with groups, rings, and fields, and to have a solid knowledge of linear algebra. Close to 200 exercises of varying difficulty serve both to reinforce the main concept of the text and to introduce the reader to additional topics.