Introduction

Tensors corresponding to specific physical properties and being invariant under a given point group have been tabulated several times, up to a certain rank. The same holds for the character tables of the crystallographic point groups. Presenting these data in the form of a computer program has, however, several advantages. Access is in general quicker, the flexibility may be greater, the information does not take as much space and there is no a priori restriction on rank or dimension. Flexibility includes, for example, the use of several settings of the crystallographic groups. Generality means that character tables can be provided for arbitrary finite point groups.

The theory of invariance of tensors is treated in Chapters 1.1 and 1.2. In Chapter 1.2, the theory of representations of crystallographic groups is also dealt with. For background information the reader is referred to these chapters. In the following, a short introduction is given to the use of the software for calculations of invariant tensors and to character tables as they are given on the accompanying CD-ROM.

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