The authors determine the number of level 1, polarized, algebraic regular, cuspidal automorphic representations of GLn over Q of any given infinitesimal character, for essentially all n≤8. For this, they compute the dimensions of spaces of level 1 automorphic forms for certain semisimple Z-forms of the compact groups SO7, SO8, SO9 (and G2) and determine Arthur's endoscopic partition of these spaces in all cases. They also give applications to the 121 even lattices of rank 25 and determinant 2 found by Borcherds, to level one self-dual automorphic representations of GLn with trivial infinitesimal character, and to vector valued Siegel modular forms of genus 3. A part of the authors' results are conditional to certain expected results in the theory of twisted endoscopy.

The authors give a complete classification of intertwining operators (symmetry breaking operators) between spherical principal series representations of and . They construct three meromorphic families of the symmetry breaking operators, and find their distribution kernels and their residues at all poles explicitly. Symmetry breaking operators at exceptional discrete parameters are thoroughly studied. The authors obtain closed formulae for the functional equations which the composition of the symmetry breaking operators with the Knapp-Stein intertwining operators of and satisfy, and use them to determine the symmetry breaking operators between irreducible composition factors of the spherical principal series representations of and . Some applications are included.

Let be a simple classical algebraic group over an algebraically closed field of characteristic with natural module . Let be a closed subgroup of and let be a non-trivial irreducible tensor-indecomposable -restricted rational -module such that the restriction of to is irreducible. In this paper the authors classify the triples of this form, where is a disconnected maximal positive-dimensional closed subgroup of preserving a natural geometric structure on .

The author classifies all reduced, indecomposable fusion systems over finite -groups of sectional rank at most . The resulting list is very similar to that by Gorenstein and Harada of all simple groups of sectional -rank at most . But this method of proof is very different from theirs, and is based on an analysis of the essential subgroups which can occur in the fusion systems.

Let p be a prime, G a finite Kp-group S a Sylow p-subgroup of G and Q a large subgroup of G in S (i.e., CG(Q)≤Q and NG(U)≤NG(Q) for 1≠U≤CG(Q)). Let L be any subgroup of G with S≤L, Op(L)≠1 and Q⋬L. In this paper the authors determine the action of L on the largest elementary abelian normal p-reduced p-subgroup YL of L.

Two closely related topics, higher order Bohr sets and higher order almost automorphy, are investigated in this paper. Both of them are related to nilsystems. In the first part, the problem which can be viewed as the higher order version of an old question concerning Bohr sets is studied: for any d∈N does the collection of {n∈Z:S∩(S−n)∩…∩(S−dn)≠∅} with S syndetic coincide with that of Nild Bohr0 -sets? In the second part, the notion of d -step almost automorphic systems with d∈N∪{∞} is introduced and investigated, which is the generalization of the classical almost automorphic ones.

In this paper the authors provide an extension of the theory of descent of Ginzburg-Rallis-Soudry to the context of essentially self-dual representations, that is, representations which are isomorphic to the twist of their own contragredient by some Hecke character. The authors' theory supplements the recent work of Asgari-Shahidi on the functorial lift from (split and quasisplit forms of) GSpin2n to GL2n.