Quantum Groups and Their Representations (Theoretical and Mathematical Physics)

The invention of quantum groups is one of the outstanding achievements of mathematical physics and mathematics in the late twentieth century. The birth of the new theory and its rapid development are results of a strong interrelation between mathematics and physics. Quantu~ groups arose in the work of L.D. Faddeev and the Leningrad school on the inverse scattering method in order to solve integrable models. The algebra Uq(sh) appeared first in 1981 in a paper by P.P. Kulish and N.Yu. Reshetikhin on the study of integrable XYZ models with highest spin. Its Hopf algebra structure was discovered later by E.K. Sklyanin. A major event was the discovery by V.G. Drinfeld and M. Jimbo around 1985 of a class of Hopf algebras which can be considered as one-parameter deforma­ tions of universal enveloping algebras of semisimple complex Lie algebras. These Hopf algebras will be called Drinfeld-Jimbo algebras in this book. Al­ most simultaneously, S.L. Woronowicz invented the quantum group SUq(2) and developed his theory of compact quantum matrix groups. An algebraic approach to quantized coordinate algebras was given about this time by Yu.I. Manin.

This book start with an introduction to quantum groups for the beginner and continues as a textbook for graduate students in physics and in mathematics. It can also be used as a reference by more advanced readers.
The authors cover a large but well-chosen variety of subjects from the theory of quantum groups (quantized universal enveloping algebras, quantized algebras of functions) and q-deformed algebras (q-oscillator algebras), their representations and corepresentations, and noncommutative differential calculus. The book is written with potential applications in physics and mathematics in mind. The basic quantum groups and quantum algebras and their representations are given in detail and accompanied by explicit formulas. A number of topics and results from the more advanced general theory are developed and discussed.