Macdonald's symmetric polynomials as zonal spherical functions on some quantum homogeneous spaces

Abstract

Quantum analogues of the homogeneous spaces $\GL(n)/\SO(n)$ and $\GL(2n)/\Sp(2n)$ are introduced. The zonal spherical functions on these quantum homogeneous spaces are represented by Macdonald's symmetric polynomials $P_{\ld}=P_{\ld}(x_1,\cdots,x_n;q,t)$ with $t=q^{1 \over 2}$ or $t=q^2$.