Characters and Blocks of Solvable Groups: A User?s Guide to Large Orbit Theorems (Synthesis Lectures on Mathematics & Statistics)

This book highlights recent developments in the representation theory of finite solvable groups, which seeks to connect group theory to linear algebra in ways that allow for better study of the groups in question. Over the last several decades, a number of results in the representations of solvable groups have been proven using so-called “large orbit” theorems. This book provides an extensive survey of the current state of the large-orbit theorems. The authors outline the proofs of the large orbit theorems to provide an overview of the topic, then demonstrate how these theorems can be used to prove new results about solvable groups.

James P. Cossey, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Akron University, where he began working in 2008. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 2005, under the supervision of Dr. I.M. Isaacs, with a dissertation entitled “Generalizations of the Fong-Swan Theorem”.  He then served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona. He has published about twenty papers in the representation theory of solvable groups and symmetric groups, and has spoken at a number of conferences.