University Lecture Series – serie

This book explains some recent applications of the theory of polynomials and algebraic geometry to combinatorics and other areas of mathematics. One of the first results in this story is a short elegant solution of the Kakeya problem for finite fields, which was considered a deep and difficult problem in combinatorial geometry. The author also discusses in detail various problems in incidence geometry associated to Paul Erdos's famous distinct distances problem in the plane from the 1940s. The proof techniques are also connected to error-correcting codes, Fourier analysis, number theory, and differential geometry. Although the mathematics discussed in the book is deep and far-reaching, it should be accessible to first- and second-year graduate students and advanced undergraduates. The book contains approximately 100 exercises that further the reader's understanding of the main themes of the book.

This book describes recent progress in the topological study of plane curves. The theory of plane curves is much richer than knot theory, which may be considered the commutative version of the theory of plane curves. This study is based on singularity theory: the infinite-dimensional space of curves is subdivided by the discriminant hypersurfaces into parts consisting of generic curves of the same type. The invariants distinguishing the types are defined by their jumps at the crossings of these hypersurfaces.Arnold describes applications to the geometry of caustics and of wavefronts in symplectic and contact geometry. These applications extend the classical four-vertex theorem of elementary plane geometry to estimates on the minimal number of cusps necessary for the reversion of a wavefront and to generalizations of the last geometrical theorem of Jacobi on conjugated points on convex surfaces. These estimates open a new chapter in symplectic and contact topology: the theory of Lagrangian and Legendrian collapses, providing an unusual and far-reaching higher-dimensional extension of Sturm theory of the oscillations of linear combinations of eigenfunctions.

$J$-holomorphic curves revolutionized the study of symplectic geometry when Gromov first introduced them in 1985. Through quantum cohomology, these curves are now linked to many of the most exciting new ideas in mathematical physics. This book presents the first coherent and full account of the theory of $J$-holomorphic curves, the details of which are presently scattered in various research papers. The first half of the book is an expository account of the field, explaining the main technical aspects. McDuff and Salamon give complete proofs of Gromov's compactness theorem for spheres and of the existence of the Gromov-Witten invariants. The second half of the book focuses on the definition of quantum cohomology.The authors establish that this multiplication exists, and give a new proof of the Ruan-Tian result that is associative on appropriate manifolds. They then describe the Givental-Kim calculation of the quantum cohomology of flag manifolds, leading to quantum Chem classes and Witten's calculation for Grassmannians, which relates to the Verlinde algebra. The Dubrovin connection, Gromov-Witten potential on quantum cohomology, and curve counting formulas are also discussed. The book closes with an outline of connections to Floer theory.

This book is about the interplay of computational commutative algebra and the theory of convex polytopes. It centers around a special class of ideals in a polynomial ring: the class of toric ideals. They are characterized as those prime ideals that are generated by monomial differences or as the defining ideals of toric varieties (not necessarily normal). The interdisciplinary nature of the study of Grobner bases is reflected by the specific applications appearing in this book. These applications lie in the domains of integer programming and computational statistics. The mathematical tools presented in the volume are drawn from commutative algebra, combinatorics, and polyhedral geometry.

This book is a collection of small essays containing the history and the proofs of some important and interesting theorems of analysis and partial differential operators in this century. Most of the results in the book are associated with Swedish mathematicians. Also included are the Tarski-Seidenberg theorem and Wiener's classical results in harmonic analysis and a delightful essay on the impact of distributions in analysis. All mathematical points are fully explained, but some require a certain mature understanding from the reader. This book is a well-written, simple work that offers full mathematical treatment, along with insight and fresh points of view.

One of the most classical areas of algebra, the theory of symmetric functions and orthogonal polynomials has long been known to be connected to combinatorics, representation theory, and other branches of mathematics. Written by perhaps the most famous author on the topic, this volume explains some of the current developments regarding these connections. It is based on lectures presented by the author at Rutgers University. Specifically, he gives recent results on orthogonal polynomials associated with affine Hecke algebras, surveying the proofs of certain famous combinatorial conjectures.

This book presents the first steps of a theory of confoliations designed to link geometry and topology of three-dimensional contact structures with the geometry and topology of codimension-one foliations on three-dimensional manifolds. Developing almost independently, these theories at first glance belonged to two different worlds: The theory of foliations is part of topology and dynamical systems, while contact geometry is the odd-dimensional 'brother' of symplectic geometry. However, both theories have developed a number of striking similarities. Confoliations - which interpolate between contact structures and codimension-one foliations - should help us to understand better links between the two theories. These links provide tools for transporting results from one field to the other.It's features include: a unified approach to the topology of codimension-one foliations and contact geometry; insight on the geometric nature of integrability; and, new results, in particular on the perturbation of confoliations into contact structures.

This is a revised and expanded edition of Kac's original introduction to algebraic aspects of conformal field theory, which was published by the AMS in 1996. The volume serves as an introduction to algebraic aspects of conformal field theory, which in the past 15 years revealed a variety of unusual mathematical notions. Vertex algebra theory provides an effective tool to study them in a unified way.In the book, a mathematician encounters new algebraic structures that originated from Einstein's special relativity postulate and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. A physicist will find familiar notions presented in a more rigorous and systematic way, possibly leading to a better understanding of foundations of quantum physics. This revised edition is based on courses given by the author at MIT and at Rome University in spring 1997. New material is added, including the foundations of a rapidly growing area of algebraic conformal theory. Also, in some places the exposition has been significantly simplified.

The Hilbert scheme $X^{[n]}$ of a surface $X$ describes collections of $n$ (not necessarily distinct) points on $X$. More precisely, it is the moduli space for $0$-dimensional subschemes of $X$ of length $n$. Recently it was realized that Hilbert schemes originally studied in algebraic geometry are closely related to several branches of mathematics, such as singularities, symplectic geometry, representation theory - even theoretical physics.The discussion in the book reflects this feature of Hilbert schemes. For example, a construction of the representation of the infinite dimensional Heisenberg algebra (i.e., Fock space) is presented. This representation has been studied extensively in the literature in connection with affine Lie algebras, conformal field theory, etc. However, the construction presented in this volume is completely unique and provides the unexplored link between geometry and representation theory. The book offers a nice survey of current developments in this rapidly growing subject. It is suitable as a text at the advanced graduate level.

Harish-Chandra presented these lectures on admissible invariant distributions for $p$-adic groups at the Institute for Advanced Study in the early 1970s. He published a short sketch of this material as his famous ""Queen's Notes"". This book, which was prepared and edited by DeBacker and Sally, presents a faithful rendering of Harish-Chandra's original lecture notes. The main purpose of Harish-Chandra's lectures was to show that the character of an irreducible admissible representation of a connected reductive $p$-adic group $G$ is represented by a locally summable function on $G$. A key ingredient in this proof is the study of the Fourier transforms of distributions on $\mathfrak g$, the Lie algebra of $G$. In particular, Harish-Chandra shows that if the support of a $G$-invariant distribution on $\mathfrak g$ is compactly generated, then its Fourier transform has an asymptotic expansion about any semisimple point of $\mathfrak g$.Harish-Chandra's remarkable theorem on the local summability of characters for $p$-adic groups was a major result in representation theory that spawned many other significant results. This book presents, for the first time in print, a complete account of Harish-Chandra's original lectures on this subject, including his extension and proof of Howe's Theorem. In addition to the original Harish-Chandra notes, DeBacker and Sally provide a nice summary of developments in this area of mathematics since the lectures were originally delivered. In particular, they discuss quantitative results related to the local character expansion.

This book gives an exposition of the relations among the following three topics: monoidal tensor categories (such as a category of representations of a quantum group), 3-dimensional topological quantum field theory, and 2-dimensional modular functors (which naturally arise in 2-dimensional conformal field theory). The following examples are discussed in detail the category of representations of a quantum group at a root of unity and the Wess-Zumino-Witten modular functor. The idea that these topics are related first appeared in the physics literature in the study of quantum field theory. Pioneering works of Witten and Moore-Seiberg triggered an avalanche of papers, both physical and mathematical, exploring various aspects of these relations.Upon preparing to lecture on the topic at MIT, however, the authors discovered that the existing literature was difficult and that there were gaps to fill. The text is wholly expository and finely succinct. It gathers results, fills existing gaps, and simplifies some proofs. The book makes an important addition to the existing literature on the topic. It would be suitable as a course text at the advanced-graduate level.

Over the past 20 years, the study of superprocesses has expanded into a major industry and can now be regarded as a central theme in modern probability theory. This book is intended as a rapid introduction to the subject, geared toward graduate students and researchers in stochastic analysis. A variety of different approaches to the superprocesses emerged over the last ten years. Yet no one approach superseded any others. In this book, readers are exposed to a number of different ways of thinking about the processes, and each is used to motivate some key results. The emphasis is on why results are true rather than on rigorous proof. Specific results are given, including extensive references to current literature for their general form.

Recent developments in geometric measure theory and harmonic analysis have led to new and deep results concerning the regularity of the support of measures which behave 'asymptotically' (for balls of small radius) as the Euclidean volume. A striking feature of these results is that they actually characterize flatness of the support in terms of the asymptotic behavior of the measure. Such characterizations have led to important new progress in the study of harmonic measure for non-smooth domains.This volume provides an up-to-date overview and an introduction to the research literature in this area. The presentation follows a series of five lectures given by Carlos Kenig at the 2000 Arkansas Spring Lecture Series at the University of Arkansas. The original lectures have been expanded and updated to reflect the rapid progress in this field. A chapter on the planar case has been added to provide a historical perspective. Additional background has been included to make the material accessible to advanced graduate students and researchers in harmonic analysis and geometric measure theory.

Image compression, the Navier-Stokes equations, and detection of gravitational waves are three seemingly unrelated scientific problems that, remarkably, can be studied from one perspective. The notion that unifies the three problems is that of 'oscillating patterns', which are present in many natural images, help to explain nonlinear equations, and are pivotal in studying chirps and frequency-modulated signals. The first chapter of this book considers image processing, more precisely algorithms of image compression and denoising. This research is motivated in particular by the new standard for compression of still images known as JPEG-2000. The second chapter has new results on the Navier-Stokes and other nonlinear evolution equations. Frequency-modulated signals and their use in the detection of gravitational waves are covered in the final chapter.In the book, the author describes both what the oscillating patterns are and the mathematics necessary for their analysis. It turns out that this mathematics involves new properties of various Besov-type function spaces and leads to many deep results, including new generalizations of famous Gagliardo-Nirenberg and Poincare inequalities. This book is based on the 'Dean Jacqueline B. Lewis Memorial Lectures' given by the author at Rutgers University. It can be used either as a textbook in studying applications of wavelets to image processing or as a supplementary resource for studying nonlinear evolution equations or frequency-modulated signals. Most of the material in the book did not appear previously in monograph literature.

This book is a systematic introduction to smooth ergodic theory. The topics discussed include the general (abstract) theory of Lyapunov exponents and its applications to the stability theory of differential equations, stable manifold theory, absolute continuity, and the ergodic theory of dynamical systems with nonzero Lyapunov exponents (including geodesic flows). The authors consider several nontrivial examples of dynamical systems with nonzero Lyapunov exponents to illustrate some basic methods and ideas of the theory. This book is self-contained. The reader needs a basic knowledge of real analysis, measure theory, differential equations, and topology. The authors present basic concepts of smooth ergodic theory and provide complete proofs of the main results. They also state some more advanced results to give readers a broader view of smooth ergodic theory. This volume may be used by those nonexperts who wish to become familiar with the field.

Moduli problems in algebraic geometry date back to Riemann's famous count of the $3g-3$ parameters needed to determine a curve of genus $g$. In this book, Zariski studies the moduli space of curves of the same equisingularity class. After setting up and reviewing the basic material, Zariski devotes one chapter to the topology of the moduli space, including an explicit determination of the rare cases when the space is compact. Chapter V looks at specific examples where the dimension of the generic component can be determined through rather concrete methods. Zariski's last chapter concerns the application of deformation theory to the moduli problem, including the determination of the dimension of the generic component for a particular family of curves. An appendix by Bernard Teissier reconsiders the moduli problem from the point of view of deformation theory. He gives new proofs of some of Zariski's results, as well as a natural construction of a compactification of the moduli space.

The theory of generalized analytic continuation studies continuations of meromorphic functions in situations where traditional theory says there is a natural boundary. This broader theory touches on a remarkable array of topics in classical analysis, as described in the book. This book addresses the following questions: when can we say, in some reasonable way, that component functions of a meromorphic function on a disconnected domain, are 'continuations' of each other? What role do such 'continuations' play in certain aspects of approximation theory and operator theory? The authors use the strong analogy with the summability of divergent series to motivate the subject. In this vein, for instance, theorems can be described as being 'Abelian' or 'Tauberian'. The introductory overview carefully explains the history and context of the theory.The authors begin with a review of the works of Poincare, Borel, Wolff, Walsh, and Goncar, on continuation properties of 'Borel series' and other meromorphic functions that are limits of rapidly convergent sequences of rational functions. They then move on to the work of Tumarkin, who looked at the continuation properties of functions in the classical Hardy space of the disk in terms of the concept of 'pseudocontinuation'. Tumarkin's work was seen in a different light by Douglas, Shapiro, and Shields in their discovery of a characterization of the cyclic vectors for the backward shift operator on the Hardy space.The authors cover this important concept of 'pseudocontinuation' quite thoroughly since it appears in many areas of analysis. They also add a new and previously unpublished method of 'continuation' to the list, based on formal multiplication of trigonometric series, which can be used to examine the backward shift operator on many spaces of analytic functions. The book attempts to unify the various types of 'continuations' and suggests some interesting open questions.

This book presents the study of torus actions on topological spaces that is presented as a bridge connecting combinatorial and convex geometry with commutative and homological algebra, algebraic geometry, and topology. This established link helps in understanding the geometry and topology of a space with torus action by studying the combinatorics of the space of orbits. Conversely, subtle properties of a combinatorial object can be realized by interpreting it as the orbit structure for a proper manifold or as a complex acted on by a torus. The latter can be a symplectic manifold with Hamiltonian torus action, a toric variety or manifold, a subspace arrangement complement, etc., while the combinatorial objects include simplicial and cubical complexes, polytopes, and arrangements.This approach also provides a natural topological interpretation in terms of torus actions of many constructions from commutative and homological algebra used in combinatorics. The exposition centers around the theory of moment-angle complexes, providing an effective way to study invariants of triangulations by methods of equivariant topology. The book includes many new and well-known open problems and would be suitable as a textbook. It will be useful for specialists both in topology and in combinatorics and will help to establish even tighter connections between the subjects involved.

Recent developments in topology and analysis have led to the creation of new lines of investigation in differential geometry. ""The 2000 Barrett Lectures"" present the background, context and main techniques of three such lines by means of surveys by leading researchers. The first chapter (by Alice Chang and Paul Yang) introduces new classes of conformal geometric invariants, and then applies powerful techniques in nonlinear differential equations to derive results on compactifications of manifolds and on Yamabe-type variational problems for these invariants. This is followed by Karsten Grove's lectures, which focus on the use of isometric group actions and metric geometry techniques to understand new examples and classification results in Riemannian geometry, especially in connection with positive curvature.The chapter written by Jon Wolfson introduces the emerging field of Lagrangian variational problems, which blends in novel ways the structures of symplectic geometry and the techniques of the modern calculus of variations. The lectures provide an up-do-date overview and an introduction to the research literature in each of their areas. This very readable introduction should prove useful to graduate students and researchers in differential geometry and geometric analysis.

This book contains most of the nonstandard material necessary to get acquainted with this new rapidly developing area. It can be used as a good entry point into the study of representations of quantum groups. Among several tools used in studying representations of quantum groups (or quantum algebras) are the notions of Kashiwara's crystal bases and Lusztig's canonical bases. Mixing both approaches allows us to use a combinatorial approach to representations of quantum groups and to apply the theory to representations of Hecke algebras. The primary goal of this book is to introduce the representation theory of quantum groups using quantum groups of type $A_{r-1}^{(1)}$ as a main example.The corresponding combinatorics, developed by Misra and Miwa, turns out to be the combinatorics of Young tableaux. The second goal of this book is to explain the proof of the (generalized) Lascoux-Leclerc-Thibon conjecture. This conjecture, which is now a theorem, is an important breakthrough in the modular representation theory of the Hecke algebras of classical type. The book is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in representation theory of algebraic groups and quantum groups, the theory of Hecke algebras, algebraic combinatorics, and related fields.

This volume addresses algebraic invariants that occur in the confluence of several important areas of mathematics, including number theory, algebra, and arithmetic algebraic geometry. The invariants are analogues for Galois cohomology of the characteristic classes of topology, which have been extremely useful tools in both topology and geometry. It is hoped that these new invariants will prove similarly useful. Early versions of the invariants arose in the attempt to classify the quadratic forms over a given field.The authors are well-known experts in the field. Serre, in particular, is recognized as both a superb mathematician and a master author. His book on Galois cohomology from the 1960s was fundamental to the development of the theory. Merkurjev, also an expert mathematician and author, co-wrote ""The Book of Involutions"" (Volume 44 in the AMS Colloquium Publications series), an important work that contains preliminary descriptions of some of the main results on invariants described here. The book also includes letters between Serre and some of the principal developers of the theory. It will be of interest to graduate students and research mathematicians interested in number theory and Galois cohomology.

Coarse geometry is the study of spaces (particularly metric spaces) from a 'large scale' point of view, so that two spaces that look the same from a great distance are actually equivalent. This point of view is effective because it is often true that the relevant geometric properties of metric spaces are determined by their coarse geometry: two examples of important uses of coarse geometry are Gromov's beautiful notion of a hyperbolic group and Mostow's proof of his famous rigidity theorem. The first few chapters of the book provide a general perspective on coarse structures. Even when only metric coarse structures are in view, the abstract framework brings the same simplification as does the passage from epsilons and deltas to open sets when speaking of continuity. The middle section of the book reviews notions of negative curvature and rigidity.Modern interest in large scale geometry derives in large part from Mostow's rigidity theorem and from Gromov's subsequent 'large scale' rendition of the crucial properties of negatively curved spaces. The final chapters discuss recent results on asymptotic dimension and uniform embeddings into Hilbert space. John Roe is known for his work on index theory, coarse geometry, and topology. His exposition is clear and direct, bringing insight to this modern field of mathematics. Students and researchers who wish to learn about contemporary methods of understanding the geometry and topology of manifolds will be well served by reading this book. Also available from the AMS by John Roe is ""Index Theory, Coarse Geometry, and Topology of Manifolds"".

'There were lots of young analysts who flocked to Chicago in those years, but virtually from the start it was clear that Tom had a special brilliance...Eventually, the mathematical door would open a crack as Tom discovered a new technique, usually of astonishing originality. The end would now be in sight, as [he] unleashed his tremendous technical abilities...Time after time, [Wolff] would pick a central problem in an area and solve it. After a few more results, the field would be changed forever...In the mathematical community, the common and rapid response to these breakthroughs was that they were seen, not just as watershed events, but as lightning strikes that permanently altered the landscape' - Peter W. Jones, Yale University.'Tom Wolff was not only a deep thinker in mathematics but also a technical master' - Barry Simon, California Institute of Technology. Thomas H. Wolff was a leading analyst and winner of the Salem and Bocher Prizes. He made significant contributions to several areas of harmonic analysis, in particular to geometrical and measure-theoretic questions related to the Kakeya needle problem. Wolff attacked the problem with awesome power and originality, using both geometric and combinatorial ideas.This book provides an inside look at the techniques used and developed by Wolff. It is based on a graduate course on Fourier analysis he taught at Caltech. The selection of the material is somewhat unconventional in that it leads the reader, in Wolff's unique and straightforward way, through the basics directly to current research topics. The book demonstrates how harmonic analysis can provide penetrating insights into deep aspects of modern analysis. It is an introduction to the subject as a whole and an overview of those branches of harmonic analysis that are relevant to the Kakeya conjecture. The first few chapters cover the usual background material: the Fourier transform, convolution, the inversion theorem, the uncertainty principle, and the method of stationary phase.However, the choice of topics is highly selective, with emphasis on those frequently used in research inspired by the problems discussed in later chapters. These include questions related to the restriction conjecture and the Kakeya conjecture, distance sets, and Fourier transforms of singular measures. These problems are diverse, but often interconnected; they all combine sophisticated Fourier analysis with intriguing links to other areas of mathematics, and they continue to stimulate first-rate work. The book focuses on laying out a solid foundation for further reading and research. Technicalities are kept to a minimum, and simpler but more basic methods are often favored over the most recent methods. The clear style of the exposition and the quick progression from fundamentals to advanced topics ensure that both graduate students and research mathematicians will benefit from the book.

Ergodic theory studies measure-preserving transformations of measure spaces. These objects are intrinsically infinite, and the notion of an individual point or of an orbit makes no sense. Still there are a variety of situations when a measure-preserving transformation (and its asymptotic behavior) can be well described as a limit of certain finite objects (periodic processes). The first part of this book develops this idea systematically. Genericity of approximation in various categories is explored, and numerous applications are presented, including spectral multiplicity and properties of the maximal spectral type.The second part of the book contains a treatment of various constructions of cohomological nature with an emphasis on obtaining interesting asymptotic behavior from approximate pictures at different time scales. The book presents a view of ergodic theory not found in other expository sources. It is suitable for graduate students familiar with measure theory and basic functional analysis.

This book contains the latest developments in a central theme of research on analysis of one complex variable. The material is based on lectures at the University of Michigan. The exposition is about understanding the geometry of interpolating and sampling sequences in classical spaces of analytic functions. The subject can be viewed as arising from three classical topics: Nevanlinna-Pick interpolation, Carleson's interpolation theorem for $H^\infty$, and the sampling theorem, also known as the Whittaker-Kotelnikov-Shannon theorem.The author clarifies how certain basic properties of the space at hand are reflected in the geometry of interpolating and sampling sequences. Key words for the geometric descriptions are Carleson measures, Beurling densities, the Nyquist rate, and the Helson-Szego condition. Seip writes in a relaxed and fairly informal style, successfully blending informal explanations with technical details. The result is a very readable account of this complex topic. Prerequisites are a basic knowledge of complex and functional analysis. Beyond that, readers should have some familiarity with the basics of $H^p$ theory and BMO.

This book is devoted to the applications of probability theory to the theory of nonlinear partial differential equations. More precisely, it is shown that all positive solutions for a class of nonlinear elliptic equations in a domain are described in terms of their traces on the boundary of the domain. The main probabilistic tool is the theory of superdiffusions, which describes a random evolution of a cloud of particles. A substantial enhancement of this theory is presented that will be of interest to anyone who works on applications of probabilistic methods to mathematical analysis. The book is suitable for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in probability theory and its applications to differential equations. Also of interest by this author is ""Diffusions, Superdiffusions and Partial Differential Equations"" in the ""AMS"" series, Colloquium Publications.

The ""infinite-dimensional groups"" in the title refer to unitary groups of Hilbert spaces, the infinite symmetric group, groups of homeomorphisms of manifolds, groups of transformations of measure spaces, etc. The book presents an approach to the study of such groups based on ideas from geometric functional analysis and from exploring the interplay between dynamical properties of those groups, combinatorial Ramsey-type theorems, and the phenomenon of concentration of measure. The dynamics of infinite-dimensional groups is very much unlike that of locally compact groups. For instance, every locally compact group acts freely on a suitable compact space (Veech). By contrast, a 1983 result by Gromov and Milman states that whenever the unitary group of a separable Hilbert space continuously acts on a compact space, it has a common fixed point. In the book, this new fast-growing theory is built strictly from well-understood examples up. The book has no close counterpart and is based on recent research articles. At the same time, it is organized so as to be reasonably self-contained. The topic is essentially interdisciplinary and will be of interest to mathematicians working in geometric functional analysis, topological and ergodic dynamics, Ramsey theory, logic and descriptive set theory, representation theory, topological groups, and operator algebras.

The book examines in some depth two important classes of point processes, determinantal processes and 'Gaussian zeros', i.e., zeros of random analytic functions with Gaussian coefficients. These processes share a property of 'point-repulsion', where distinct points are less likely to fall close to each other than in processes, such as the Poisson process, that arise from independent sampling. Nevertheless, the treatment in the book emphasizes the use of independence: for random power series, the independence of coefficients is key; for determinantal processes, the number of points in a domain is a sum of independent indicators, and this yields a satisfying explanation of the central limit theorem (CLT) for this point count. Another unifying theme of the book is invariance of considered point processes under natural transformation groups. The book strives for balance between general theory and concrete examples. On the one hand, it presents a primer on modern techniques on the interface of probability and analysis. On the other hand, a wealth of determinantal processes of intrinsic interest are analyzed; these arise from random spanning trees and eigenvalues of random matrices, as well as from special power series with determinantal zeros. The material in the book formed the basis of a graduate course given at the IAS-Park City Summer School in 2007; the only background knowledge assumed can be acquired in first-year graduate courses in analysis and probability.

This book contains detailed descriptions of the many exciting recent developments in the combinatorics of the space of diagonal harmonics, a topic at the forefront of current research in algebraic combinatorics. These developments led in turn to some surprising discoveries in the combinatorics of Macdonald polynomials, which are described in Appendix A. The book is appropriate as a text for a topics course in algebraic combinatorics, a volume for self-study, or a reference text for researchers in any area which involves symmetric functions or lattice path combinatorics.