Abstract

This book is intended to introduce researchers and graduate students to the concepts of causal symmetric spaces. To date, results of recent studies considered standard by specialists have not been widely published. This book seeks to bring this information to students and researchers in geometry and analysis on causal symmetric spaces.
Includes the newest results in harmonic analysis including Spherical functions on ordered symmetric space and the holmorphic discrete series and Hardy spaces on compactly casual symmetric spaces
Deals with the infinitesimal situation, coverings of symmetric spaces, classification of causal symmetric pairs and invariant cone fields
Presents basic geometric properties of semi-simple symmetric spaces
Includes appendices on Lie algebras and Lie groups, Bounded symmetric domains (Cayley transforms), Antiholomorphic Involutions on Bounded Domains and Para-Hermitian Symmetric Spaces
"This book is an excellent introduction to the geometry and structure of casual symmetric spaces. It should be accessible to any graduate student with a solid Lie-theoretic background."
--Karl-Hermann Neeb, MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS