An up-to-date treatment of analytic pro-p groups for graduate students and researchers.

A pro-p group is the inverse limit of some system of finite p-groups, that is, of groups of prime-power order where the prime - conventionally denoted p - is fixed. Thus from one point of view, to study a pro-p group is the same as studying an infinite family of finite groups; but a pro-p group is also a compact topological group, and the compactness works its usual magic to bring 'infinite' problems down to manageable proportions. The p-adic integers appeared about a century ago, but the systematic study of pro-p groups in general is a fairly recent development. Although much has been dis covered, many avenues remain to be explored; the purpose of this book is to present a coherent account of the considerable achievements of the last several years, and to point the way forward. Thus our aim is both to stimulate research and to provide the comprehensive background on which that research must be based. The chapters cover a wide range. In order to ensure the most authoritative account, we have arranged for each chapter to be written by a leading contributor (or contributors) to the topic in question. Pro-p groups appear in several different, though sometimes overlapping, contexts.

Manifolds over complete nonarchimedean fields together with notions like tangent spaces and vector fields form a convenient geometric language to express the basic formalism of p-adic analysis. The volume starts with a self-contained and detailed introduction to this language. This includes the discussion of spaces of locally analytic functions as topological vector spaces, important for applications in representation theory. The author then sets up the analytic foundations of the theory of p-adic Lie groups and develops the relation between p-adic Lie groups and their Lie algebras. The second part of the book contains, for the first time in a textbook, a detailed exposition of Lazard's algebraic approach to compact p-adic Lie groups, via his notion of a p-valuation, together with its application to the structure of completed group rings.

The normal subgroup structure of maximal pro-p-subgroups of rational points of algebraic groups over the p-adics and their characteristic p analogues are investigated. These groups have finite width, i.e. the indices of the sucessive terms of the lower central series are bounded since they become periodic. The richness of the lattice of normal subgroups is studied by the notion of obliquity. All just infinite maximal groups with Lie algebras up to dimension 14 and most Chevalley groups and classical groups in characteristic 0 and p are covered. The methods use computers in small cases and are purely theoretical for the infinite series using root systems or orders with involutions.

In this book, three authors introduce readers to strong approximation methods, analytic pro-p groups and zeta functions of groups. Each chapter illustrates connections between infinite group theory, number theory and Lie theory. The first introduces the theory of compact p-adic Lie groups. The second explains how methods from linear algebraic groups can be utilised to study the finite images of linear groups. The final chapter provides an overview of zeta functions associated to groups and rings. Derived from an LMS/EPSRC Short Course for graduate students, this book provides a concise introduction to a very active research area and assumes less prior knowledge than existing monographs or original research articles. Accessible to beginning graduate students in group theory, it will also appeal to researchers interested in infinite group theory and its interface with Lie theory and number theory.

The series is aimed specifically at publishing peer reviewed reviews and contributions presented at workshops and conferences. Each volume is associated with a particular conference, symposium or workshop. These events cover various topics within pure and applied mathematics and provide up-to-date coverage of new developments, methods and applications.

On September 1-7, 1996 a conference on Groups and Geometries took place in lovely Siena, Italy. It brought together experts and interested mathematicians from numerous countries. The scientific program centered around invited exposi tory lectures; there also were shorter research announcements, including talks by younger researchers. The conference concerned a broad range of topics in group theory and geometry, with emphasis on recent results and open problems. Special attention was drawn to the interplay between group-theoretic methods and geometric and combinatorial ones. Expanded versions of many of the talks appear in these Proceedings. This volume is intended to provide a stimulating collection of themes for a broad range of algebraists and geometers. Among those themes, represented within the conference or these Proceedings, are aspects of the following: 1. the classification of finite simple groups, 2. the structure and properties of groups of Lie type over finite and algebraically closed fields of finite characteristic, 3. buildings, and the geometry of projective and polar spaces, and 4. geometries of sporadic simple groups. We are grateful to the authors for their efforts in providing us with manuscripts in LaTeX. Barbara Priwitzer and Thomas Hintermann, Mathematics Editors of Birkhauser, have been very helpful and supportive throughout the preparation of this volume.

Positive laws on generators in powerful pro-p groups / C. Acciarri and G.A. Fernandez-Alcober -- Periodic groups saturated by dihedral subgroups / B. Amberg and L. Kazarin -- A note on finite groups in which the conjugacy class sizes form an arithmetic progression / M. Bianchi, A. Gillio and P.P. Palfy -- A survey of recent progress on non-abelian tensor squares of groups / R.D. Blyth, F. Fumagalli and M. Morigi -- Conjugacy classes of subgroups of finite p-groups: the first gap / R. Brandl -- The Tutte polynomial of the Schreier graphs of the Grigorchuck group and the Basilica group / T. Ceccherini-Silberstein, A. Donno and D. Iacono -- On maximal subgroups of the alternating and symmetric groups / V. Colombo -- Markov's problems through the looking glass of Zariski and Markov topologies / D. Dikranjan and D. Toller -- Linear groups with finite dimensional orbits / M.R. Dixon, L.A. Kurdachenko and J. Otal -- Three-dimensional loops as sections in a four-dimensional solvable Lie group / A. Figula -- A note on finite p-groups with a maximal elementary subgroup of rank 2 / G. Glauberman -- Finitely generated free by C[symbol] pro-p groups / W. Herfort and P.A. Zalesskii -- Finite nonabelian 2-groups all of whose minimal nonabelian subgroups are isomorphic to M[symbol] / Z. Janko -- Twisted conjugacy in certain Artin groups / A. Juhasz -- Applications of Clifford's theorem to Frobenius groups of automorphisms / E.I. Khukhro -- Inducing [symbol]-partial characters with a given vertex / M.L. Lewis -- Groups and Lie rings with Frobenius groups of automorphisms / N. Yu. Makarenko -- On integral representations of finite groups / D. Malinin -- On p-groups of small powerful class / A. Mann -- Lifting (2, k)-generators of linear groups / A. Maroti and C. Tamburini Bellani -- Fixed point subgroups and character tables / G. Navarro -- Permutability and seriality in locally finite groups / D.J.S. Robinson -- On the exponent of a finite group with a four-group of automorphisms / E. Romano and P. Shumyatsky -- Examples of Markov chains on spaces with multiplicities / F. Scarabotti and F. Tolli -- On the order and the element orders of finite groups: results and problems / W.J. Shi -- On local finiteness of verbal subgroups in residually finite groups / P. Shumyatsky -- The adjoint group of radical rings and related questions / Ya. P. Sysak -- On the Gorenstein dimension of soluble groups / O. Talelli -- Decomposition numbers for projective modules of finite Chevalley groups / A.E. Zalesski

It is by no means clear what comprises the "heart" or "core" of algebra, the part of algebra which every algebraist should know. Hence we feel that a book on "our heart" might be useful. We have tried to catch this heart in a collection of about 150 short sections, written by leading algebraists in these areas. These sections are organized in 9 chapters A, B, . . . , I. Of course, the selection is partly based on personal preferences, and we ask you for your understanding if some selections do not meet your taste (for unknown reasons, we only had problems in the chapter "Groups" to get enough articles in time). We hope that this book sets up a standard of what all algebraists are supposed to know in "their" chapters; interested people from other areas should be able to get a quick idea about the area. So the target group consists of anyone interested in algebra, from graduate students to established researchers, including those who want to obtain a quick overview or a better understanding of our selected topics. The prerequisites are something like the contents of standard textbooks on higher algebra. This book should also enable the reader to read the "big" Handbook (Hazewinkel 1999-) and other handbooks. In case of multiple authors, the authors are listed alphabetically; so their order has nothing to do with the amounts of their contributions.