This paper gives a review of Cherednik's results on the representation-theoretic approach to Macdonald polynomials and related special functions. Macdonald polynomials are a remarkable 2-parameter family of polynomials which can be associated to every root system. As special cases, they include the Schur functions, the -Jacobi polynomials, and certain spherical functions on real and -adic symmetric spaces. They have a number of elegant combinatorial properties, which, however, are extremely difficult to prove. In this paper we show that a natural setup for studying these polynomials is provided by the representation theory of Hecke algebras and show how this can be used to prove some of the combinatorial identities for Macdonald polynomials.
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