An Introduction to the Theory of Large Deviations

These notes are based on a course which I gave during the academic year 1983-84 at the University of Colorado. My intention was to provide both my audience as well as myself with an introduction to the theory of 1arie deviations • The organization of sections 1) through 3) owes something to chance and a great deal to the excellent set of notes written by R. Azencott for the course which he gave in 1978 at Saint-Flour (cf. Springer Lecture Notes in Mathematics 774). To be more precise: it is ch