Lie groups, their discrete subgroups and invariant theory

For the past thirty years, E. B. Vinberg and L. A. Onishchik have conducted a seminar on Lie groups at Moscow University; about five years ago V. L. Popov became the third co-director, and the range of topics expanded to include invariant theory. Today, the seminar encompasses such areas as algebraic groups, geometry and topology of homogeneous spaces, and Kac-Moody groups and algebras. This collection of papers presents a snapshot of the research activities of this well-established seminar, including new results in Lie groups, crystallographic groups, and algebraic transformation groups. These papers will not be published elsewhere. Readers will find this volume useful for the new results it contains as well as for the open problems it poses.