Edwin Hewitt - Böcker

This book is first of all designed as a text for the course usually called "theory of functions of a real variable". Co., Reading, Mass., 1957], orWALTERRUDIN's Principles of Mathe­ matical Analysis [2nd Ed., McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1964].

When we acce pted th ekindinvitationof Prof. Dr. F. K. Scnxmrrto write a monographon abstract harmonic analysis for the Grundlehren. der Maihemaiischen Wissenscha/ten series,weintendedto writeall that wecouldfindoutaboutthesubjectin a textof about 600printedpages. We intended thatour book should be accessi ble tobeginners,and we hoped to makeit usefulto specialists as well. These aims proved to be mutually inconsistent. Hencethe presentvolume comprises onl y half of theprojectedwork. Itgives all ofthe structure oftopological groups neededfor harmonic analysisas it is known to u s; it treats integration on locallycompact groups in detail;it contains an introductionto the theory of group representati ons. In the second volume we will treat harmonicanalysisoncompactgroupsand locallycompactAbeliangroups, in considerable et d ail. Thebook is basedon courses given by E. HEWITT at the University of Washington and the University of Uppsala,althoughnaturallythe material of these courses has been en ormously expanded to meet the needsof a formal monograph. Like the. other treatments of harmonic analysisthathaveappeared since 1940,the book is a linealdescendant of A.WEIL'S fundamentaltreatise (WElL [4J)1. The debtof all workers in the field to WEIL'S work is wellknown and enormous. We havealso borrowed freely from LOOMIS'S treatmentof the subject (Lool\IIS[2 J), from NAIMARK [1J,and most especially from PONTRYA GIN [7]. In our exposition ofthestructur e of locally compact Abelian groups and of the PONTRYA GIN-VA N KAM PEN dualitytheorem,wehave beenstrongly influenced byPONTRYA GIN'S treatment. We hope to havejustified the writing of yet anothertreatiseon abstractharmonicanalysis by taking up recentwork, by writingoutthedetailsofeveryimportantconstruction andtheorem,andby including a largenumberof concrete ex amplesand factsnotavailablein other textbooks.

This book is first of all designed as a text for the course usually called "theory of functions of a real variable". This course is at present cus­ tomarily offered as a first or second year graduate course in United States universities, although there are signs that this sort of analysis will soon penetrate upper division undergraduate curricula. We have included every topic that we think essential for the training of analysts, and we have also gone down a number of interesting bypaths. We hope too that the book will be useful as a reference for mature mathematicians and other scientific workers. Hence we have presented very general and complete versions of a number of important theorems and constructions. Since these sophisticated versions may be difficult for the beginner, we have given elementary avatars of all important theorems, with appro­ priate suggestions for skipping. We have given complete definitions, ex­ planations, and proofs throughout, so that the book should be usable for individual study as well as for a course text. Prerequisites for reading the book are the following. The reader is assumed to know elementary analysis as the subject is set forth, for example, in ToM M. APOSTOL's Mathematical Analysis [Addison-Wesley Publ. Co., Reading, Mass., 1957], orWALTERRUDIN's Principles of Mathe­ matical Analysis [2nd Ed., McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1964].

This book is a continuation of vol. I (Grundlehren vol. 115, also available in softcover), and contains a detailed treatment of some important parts of harmonic analysis on compact and locally compact abelian groups. From the reviews: "This work aims at giving a monographic presentation of abstract harmonic analysis, far more complete and comprehensive than any book already existing on the subject...in connection with every problem treated the book offers a many-sided outlook and leads up to most modern developments. Carefull attention is also given to the history of the subject, and there is an extensive bibliography...the reviewer believes that for many years to come this will remain the classical presentation of abstract harmonic analysis." Publicationes Mathematicae

This book is a continuation of Volume I of the same title [Grund­ lehren der mathematischen Wissenschaften, Band 115 ]. We constantly 1 1. The textbook Real and cite definitions and results from Volume abstract analysis by E. HEWITT and K. R. STROMBERG [Berlin · Gottin­ gen ·Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag 1965], which appeared between the publication of the two volumes of this work, contains many standard facts from analysis. We use this book as a convenient reference for such facts, and denote it in the text by RAAA. Most readers will have only occasional need actually to read in RAAA. Our goal in this volume is to present the most important parts of harmonic analysis on compact groups and on locally compact Abelian groups. We deal with general locally compact groups only where they are the natural setting for what we are considering, or where one or another group provides a useful counterexample. Readers who are interested only in compact groups may read as follows: § 27, Appendix D, §§ 28-30 [omitting subheads (30.6)-(30.60)ifdesired], (31.22)-(31.25), §§ 32, 34-38, 44. Readers who are interested only in locally compact Abelian groups may read as follows: §§ 31-33, 39-42, selected Mis­ cellaneous Theorems and Examples in §§34-38. For all readers, § 43 is interesting but optional. Obviously we have not been able to cover all of harmonic analysis.