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arXiv · 2009.01065

The Plancherel formula for countable groups

Bachir Bekka
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Abstract

We discuss a Plancherel formula for countable groups, which provides a canonical decomposition of the regular representation of such a group $\Gamma$ into a direct integral of factor representations. Our main result gives a precise description of this decomposition in terms of the Plancherel formula of the FC-center $\Gamma_{\rm fc}$ of $\Gamma$ (that is, the normal sugbroup of $\Gamma$ consisting of elements with a finite conjugacy class); this description involves the action of an appropriate totally disconnected compact group of automorphisms of $\Gamma_{\rm fc}$. As an application, we determine the Plancherel formula for linear groups. In an appendix, we use the Plancherel formula to provide a unified proof for Thoma's and Kaniuth's theorems which respectively characterize countable groups which are of type I and those whose regular representation is of type II.

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Bachir Bekka. 2020-09-02. The Plancherel formula for countable groups. https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.01065

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