This book contains the author's notes for a course that he taught at ETH, Zürich. The aim is to lead the reader to a proof of the Peter-Weyl theorem, the basic theorem in the representation theory of compact topological groups. The topological, analytical, and algebraic groundwork needed for the proof is provided as part of the course.

A publication of Hindustan Book Agency; distributed within the Americas by the American Mathematical Society. Maximum discount of 20% for all commercial channels.

Readership

General audience interested in the Peter-Weyl theorem.

Reviews

"The presentation in this text is clear and to the point. The methods used are good classical ones. This is a good text for a student who knows little about locally compact groups and wants to get an introduction to some of the fundamental ideas needed to begin the study of them."

-- Mathematical Reviews

Table of Contents

• Topological preliminaries
• The Haar measure on a locally compact group
• Hilbert spaces and the spectral theorem
• Compact groups and their representations