Symmetries and Laplacians

The main objective is tointroduce the reader to concepts, ideas, results and techniques that evolvearound symmetry-groups, representations and Laplacians. Morespecifically, the main interest concerns geometrical objects and structures{X}, discrete or continuous, that possess sufficiently large symmetrygroup G, such as regular graphs (Platonic solids), lattices, andsymmetric Riemannian manifolds. All such objects have a natural Laplacian&Dgr;, a linear operator on functions over X, invariant underthe group action. There are many problems associated with Laplacians onX, such as continuous or discrete-time evolutions, on X,random walks, diffusion processes, and wave-propagation. This book containssufficient material for a 1 or 2-semester course.