Free Lie Algebras

Reutenauer Ch.

This much-needed new book is the first to specifically detail free Lie algebras. Lie polynomials appeared at the turn of the century and were identified with the free Lie algebra by Magnus and Witt some thirty years later. Many recent, important developments have occurred in the field – especially from the point of view of representation theory – that have necessitated a thorough treatment of the subject. This timely book covers all aspects of the field, including characterization of Lie polynomials and Lie series, subalgebras and automorphisms, canonical projections, Hall bases, shuffles and subwords, circular words, Lie representations of the symmetric group, related symmetric functions, descent algebra, and quasisymmetric functions. With its emphasis on the algebraic and combinatorial point of view as well as representation theory, this book will be welcomed by students and researchers in mathematics and theoretical computer science.