A simplified approach to the holomorphic discrete series

Expository article on semisimple Lie groups of Hermitian type and their unitary representations known as the holomorphic discrete series. The realization of the symmetric spaces associated to the groups as bounded symmetric domains is described. The representations in question are defined by holomorphic induction and realized on spaces of vector-valued holomorphic functions on the domain. A key question is whether the induction process yields a non-zero space. It is answered by Harish-Chandra’s condition, for which a complete proof is given.