Introduction to Subfactors (London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series)

Subfactors have been a subject of considerable research activity for about fifteen years and are known to have significant relations with other fields such as low dimensional topology and algebraic quantum field theory. These notes give an introduction to the subject suitable for a student who has only a little familiarity with the theory of Hilbert space. A new pictorial approach to subfactors is presented in a late chapter.