Crystal Bases : Representations and Combinatorics

This unique book provides the first introduction to crystal base theory from the combinatorial point of view. Crystal base theory was developed by Kashiwara and Lusztig from the perspective of quantum groups. Its power comes from the fact that it addresses many questions in representation theory and mathematical physics by combinatorial means. This book approaches the subject directly from combinatorics, building crystals through local axioms (based on the ideas by Stembridge) and virtual crystals. It also emphasizes parallels between the representation theory of the symmetric and general linear group, and phenomena in combinatorics. The authors are both contributors to Sage, an open-source mathematical software system, which has strong support for crystal bases and combinatorics and the book takes advantage of this.