This volume is the first of two volumes containing the revised and completed notes lectures given at the school "Quantum Independent Increment Processes: Structure and Applications to Physics." This school was held at the Alfried-Krupp-Wissenschaftskolleg in Greifswald during the period March 9 - 22, 2003, and supported by the Volkswagen Foundation. The school gave an introduction to current research on quantum independent increment processes aimed at graduate students and non-specialists working in classical and quantum probability, operator algebras, and mathematical physics.

The present first volume contains the following lectures: "Levy Processes in Euclidean Spaces and Groups" by David Applebaum, "Locally Compact Quantum Groups" by Johan Kustermans, "Quantum Stochastic Analysis" by J. Martin Lindsay, and "Dilations, Cocycles and Product Systems" by B.V. Rajarama Bhat."

Much has changed in the world of quantum probability since the publication of the last volume in this series. Giants in the field, such as P-A Meyer, K R Parthasarathy and W yon Waldenfels, have reached the age of retirement. Readers will, however, be pleased to see evidence in the present volume that Partha remains as creatively active as ever. The field itself, regarded at one time as the esoteric province of a small group of devotees, has come of age. It has attracted the enthusiastic commitment of an ever-growing army of young mathematicians and physicists, many of whom are represented here.