The idea of writing this book appeared when I was working on some problems related to representations of physically relevant infinite - mensional groups of operators on physically relevant Hilbert spaces. The considerations were local, reducing the subject to dealing with representations of infinite-dimensional Lie algebras associated with the associated groups. There is a large number of specialized articles and books on parts of this subject, but to our suprise only a few represent the point of view given in this book. Moreover, none of the written material was self-contained. At present, the subject has not reached its final form and active research is still being undertaken. I present this subject of growing importance in a unified manner and by a fairly simple approach. I present a route by which students can absorb and understand the subject, only assuming that the reader is familliar with functional analysis, especially bounded and unbounded operators on Hilbert spaces. Moreover, I assume a little basic knowledge of algebras , Lie algebras, Lie groups, and manifolds- at least the definitions. The contents are presented in detail in the introduction in Chap. The manuscript of this book has been succesfully used by some advanced graduate students at Aarhus University, Denmark, in their "A-exame'. I thank them for comments.

The volume is a collection of refereed research papers on infinite dimensional groups and manifolds in mathematics and quantum physics. Topics covered are: new classes of Lie groups of mappings, the Burgers equation, the Chern--Weil construction in infinite dimensions, the hamiltonian approach to quantum field theory, and different aspects of large N limits ranging from approximation methods in quantum mechanics to modular forms and string/gauge theory duality. Directed at research mathematicians and theoretical physicists as well as graduate students, the volume gives an overview of important themes of research at the forefront of mathematics and theoretical physics.

Contents:Integrable Representation of Kac-Moody Algebras: Results and Open Problems (V Chari & A Pressley)Existence of Certain Components in the Tensor Product of Two Integrable Highest Weight Modules for Kac-Moody Algebras (SKumar)Frobenius Action on the B-Cohomology (O Mathieu)Certain Rank Two Subsystems of Kac-Moody Root Systems (J Morita)Lie Groups Associated to Kac-Moody Lie Algebras: An Analytic Approach (E Rodriguez-Carrington)Almost Split-K-Forms of Kac-Moody Algebras (G Rousseau)Global Representations of the Diffeomorphism Groups of the Circle (F Bien)Path Space Realization of the Basic Representation of An(1) (E Date et al)Boson-Fermion Correspondence Over (C De Concini et al)Classification of Modular Invariant Representations of Affine Algebras (V G Kac & M Wakimoto)Standard Monomial Theory for SL2 (V Lakshmibai & C S Seshadri)Some Results on Modular Invariant Representations (S Lu)Current Algebras in 3+1 Space-Time Dimensions (J Mickelson)Standard Representations of An(1) (M Primc)Representations of the Algebra Uq(sI(2)), q-Orthogonal Polynomials and Invariants of Links (A N Kirillov & N Yu Reshetikhin)Infinite Super Grassmannians and Super Plücker Equations (M J Bergvelt)Drinfeld-Sokolov Hierarchies and t-Functions (H J Imbens)Super Boson-Fermion Correspondence of Type B (V G Kac & J W van de Leur)Prym Varieties and Soliton Equations (T Shiota)Polynomial Solutions of the BKP Hierarchy and Projective Representations of Symmetric Groups (Y You)Toward Generalized Macdonald's Identities (D Bernard)Conformal Theories with Non-Linearly Extended Virasoro Symmetries and Lie Algebra Classification (A Bilal & J-LGervais)Extended Conformal Algebras from Kac-Moody Algebras (P Bouwknegt)Meromorphic Conformal Field Theory (P Goddard)Local Extensions of the U(1) Current Algebra and Their Positive Energy Representations (R R Paunov & I T Todorov)Conformal Field Theory on Moduli Family of Stable Curves with Gauge Symmetries (A Tsuchiya & Y Yamada) Readership: Mathematicians and mathematical physicists

Lie superalgebras are a natural generalization of Lie algebras, having applications in geometry, number theory, gauge field theory, and string theory. Introduction to Finite and Infinite Dimensional Lie Algebras and Superalgebras introduces the theory of Lie superalgebras, their algebras, and their representations. The material covered ranges from basic definitions of Lie groups to the classification of finite-dimensional representations of semi-simple Lie algebras. While discussing all classes of finite and infinite dimensional Lie algebras and Lie superalgebras in terms of their different classes of root systems, the book focuses on Kac-Moody algebras. With numerous exercises and worked examples, it is ideal for graduate courses on Lie groups and Lie algebras. Discusses the fundamental structure and all root relationships of Lie algebras and Lie superalgebras and their finite and infinite dimensional representation theory Closely describes BKM Lie superalgebras, their different classes of imaginary root systems, their complete classifications, root-supermultiplicities, and related combinatorial identities Includes numerous tables of the properties of individual Lie algebras and Lie superalgebras Focuses on Kac-Moody algebras

Just as groups can have representations on vector spaces, 2-groups have representations on 2-vector spaces, but Lie 2-groups typically have few representations on the finite-dimensional 2-vector spaces introduced by Kapranov and Voevodsky. Therefore, Crane, Sheppeard, and Yetter introduced certain infinite-dimensional 2-vector spaces, called measurable categories, to study infinite-dimensional representations of certain Lie 2-groups, and German and North American mathematicians continue that work here. After introductory matters, they cover representations of 2-groups, and measurable categories, representations on measurable categories. There is no index. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).