Anthony To-Ming Lau – författare

The theory of the Fourier algebra lies at the crossroads of several areas of analysis. Its roots are in locally compact groups and group representations, but it requires a considerable amount of functional analysis, mainly Banach algebras. In recent years it has made a major connection to the subject of operator spaces, to the enrichment of both. In this book two leading experts provide a road map to roughly 50 years of research detailing the role that the Fourier and Fourier-Stieltjes algebras have played in not only helping to better understand the nature of locally compact groups, but also in building bridges between abstract harmonic analysis, Banach algebras, and operator algebras. All of the important topics have been included, which makes this book a comprehensive survey of the field as it currently exists. Since the book is, in part, aimed at graduate students, the authors offer complete and readable proofs of all results. The book will be well received by the community in abstract harmonic analysis and will be particularly useful for doctoral and postdoctoral mathematicians conducting research in this important and vibrant area.

This research monograph introduces some new aspects to the theory of harmonic functions and related topics. The authors study the analytic algebraic structures of the space of bounded harmonic functions on locally compact groups and its non-commutative analogue, the space of harmonic functionals on Fourier algebras. Both spaces are shown to be the range of a contractive projection on a von Neumann algebra and therefore admit Jordan algebraic structures. This provides a natural setting to apply recent results from non-associative analysis, semigroups and Fourier algebras. Topics discussed include Poisson representations, Poisson spaces, quotients of Fourier algebras and the Murray-von Neumann classification of harmonic functionals.