A Course on Lie algebras and Chevalley groups

Abstract: These are notes of a graduate course on semisimple Lie algebras and Chevalley groups (over arbitrary fields). Standard references for these topics are the lectures notes by Steinberg (1967) and the book by Carter (1972). The aim of this text is to give a self-contained introduction based on Lusztig's recent simplified approach, which is inspired by the general theory of ``canonical'' bases. Many constructions are of a purely combinatorial nature and, hence, can be implemented on a computer. We explicitly incorporate such algorithmic methods in our treatment. This is the first part of a planned book project.