This book explores some basic roles of Lie groups in linear analysis, with particular emphasis on the generalizations of the Fourier transform and the study of partial differential equations. It began as lecture notes for a one-semester graduate course given by the author in noncommutative harmonic analysis. It is a valuable resource for both graduate students and faculty, and requires only a background with Fourier analysis and basic functional analysis, plus the first few chapters of a standard text on Lie groups.

The basic method of noncommutative harmonic analysis, a generalization of Fourier analysis, is to synthesize operators on a space on which a Lie group has a unitary representation from operators on irreducible representation spaces. Though the general study is far from complete, this book covers a great deal of the progress that has been made on important classes of Lie groups.

Unlike many other books on harmonic analysis, this book focuses on the relationship between harmonic analysis and partial differential equations. The author considers many classical PDEs, particularly boundary value problems for domains with simple shapes, that exhibit noncommutative groups of symmetries. Also, the book contains detailed work, which has not previously been published, on the harmonic analysis of the Heisenberg group and harmonic analysis on cones.