Quantum Groups and Lie Theory

This book comprises an overview of the material presented at the 1999 Durham Symposium on Quantum Groups and includes contributions from many of the world's leading figures in this area. It will be of interest to researchers and will also be useful as a reference text for graduate courses.

Since its genesis in the early 1980s, the subject of quantum groups has grown rapidly. By the late 1990s most of the foundational issues had been resolved and many of the outstanding problems clearly formulated. To take stock and to discuss the most fruitful directions for future research many of the world''s leading figures in this area met at the Durham Symposium on Quantum Groups in the summer of 1999, and this volume provides an excellent overview of the material presented there. It includes important surveys of both cyclotomic Hecke algebras and the dynamical Yang-Baxter equation. Plus contributions which treat the construction and classification of quantum groups or the associated solutions of the quantum Yang-Baxter equation. The representation theory of quantum groups is discussed, as is the function algebra approach to quantum groups, and there is a new look at the origins of quantum groups in the theory of integrable systems.