The Plancherel theorem for a reductive symmetric space

Abstract

This chapter is based is on a series of lectures given at the meeting of the European School of Group Theory in August 2000, Odense, Denmark. The purpose of the lectures was to explain the structure of the Plancherel decomposition for a reductive symmetric space, as well as many of the main ideas involved in the proof found in joint work with Henrik Schlichtkrull.