Partition Algebras And Permutation Representations Of Wreath Products

Wreath products have arisen in many situations in both group and semigroup theory, often providing examples of unexpected behavior, but also in quite fundamental settings. They occur in many applications in science, particularly in physics and chemistry.

The representation theory of the symmetric groups is a classical topic that, since the pioneering work of Frobenius, Schur and Young, has grown into a huge body of theory, with many important connections to other areas of mathematics and physics. This self-contained book provides a detailed introduction to the subject, covering classical topics such as the Littlewood–Richardson rule and the Schur–Weyl duality. Importantly the authors also present many recent advances in the area, including Lassalle's character formulas, the theory of partition algebras, and an exhaustive exposition of the approach developed by A. M. Vershik and A. Okounkov. A wealth of examples and exercises makes this an ideal textbook for graduate students. It will also serve as a useful reference for more experienced researchers across a range of areas, including algebra, computer science, statistical mechanics and theoretical physics.

The Latin-American conference on algebra, the XV Coloquio Latinoamericano de Algebra (Cocoyoc, Mexico), consisted of plenary sessions of general interest and special sessions on algebraic combinatorics, associative rings, cohomology of rings and algebras, commutative algebra, group representations, Hopf algebras, number theory, quantum groups, and representation theory of algebras. This proceedings volume contains original research papers related to talks at the colloquium. In addition, there are several surveys presenting important topics to a broad mathematical audience. There are also two invited papers by Raymundo Bautista and Roberto Martinez, founders of the Mexican school of representation theory of algebras. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers interested in algebra.

A self-contained introduction to the representation theory and harmonic analysis of wreath products of finite groups, with examples and exercises.