Graduate Texts in Mathematics
2 primary works • 3 total works
Book 59
Kummer's work on cyclotomic fields paved the way for the development of algebraic number theory in general by Dedekind, Weber, Hensel, Hilbert, Takagi, Artin and others. However, the success of this general theory has tended to obscure special facts proved by Kummer about cyclotomic fields which lie deeper than the general theory. For a long period in the 20th century this aspect of Kummer's work seems to have been largely forgotten, except for a few papers, among which are those by Pollaczek [Po], Artin-Hasse [A-H] and Vandiver [Va]. In the mid 1950's, the theory of cyclotomic fields was taken up again by Iwasawa and Leopoldt. Iwasawa viewed cyclotomic fields as being analogues for number fields of the constant field extensions of algebraic geometry, and wrote a great sequence of papers investigating towers of cyclotomic fields, and more generally, Galois extensions of number fields whose Galois group is isomorphic to the additive group of p-adic integers. Leopoldt concentrated on a fixed cyclotomic field, and established various p-adic analogues of the classical complex analytic class number formulas. In particular, this led him to introduce, with Kubota, p-adic analogues of the complex L-functions attached to cyclotomic extensions of the rationals. Finally, in the late 1960's, Iwasawa [Iw 1 I] . made the fundamental discovery that there was a close connection between his work on towers of cyclotomic fields and these p-adic L-functions of Leopoldt-Kubota.
Book 105
SL2(R) gives the student an introduction to the infinite dimensional representation theory of semisimple Lie groups by concentrating on one example - SL2(R). This field is of interest not only for its own sake, but for its connections with other areas such as number theory, as brought out, for example, in the work of Langlands. The rapid development of representation theory over the past 40 years has made it increasingly difficult for a student to enter the field. This book makes the theory accessible to a wide audience, its only prerequisites being a knowledge of real analysis, and some differential equations.
Vol 105
SL2(R) gives the student an introduction to the infinite dimensional representation theory of semisimple Lie groups by concentrating on one example - SL2(R). This field is of interest not only for its own sake, but for its connections with other areas such as number theory, as brought out, for example, in the work of Langlands. The rapid development of representation theory over the past 40 years has made it increasingly difficult for a student to enter the field. This book makes the theory accessible to a wide audience, its only prerequisites being a knowledge of real analysis, and some differential equations.