New York Number Theory Seminar
May 08, 2003, 3:30 PM in Room 5417

Speaker:
Alexander Rozenblyum, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Title:
Quantum Groups: introduction and basic concepts
Abstract:
This will be an expository lecture to introduce number theorists to quantum groups, a topic which will be of increasing importance in number theory. Quantum groups were introduced in the early 1980s. They first arose in the physics literature and were used to construct solutions of the so-called Yang-Baxter equations. Since then they have found numerous applications in different areas of theoretical physics and mathematics. In this talk, basic concepts related to quantum groups will be discussed: coalgebras, Hopf algebras and deformations. Some examples and applications of quantum groups will be considered, and in particular, their relationships to the so-called q-special functions.