Complementary series representation

Last updated

In mathematics, complementary series representations of a reductive real or p-adic Lie groups are certain irreducible unitary representations that are not tempered and do not appear in the decomposition of the regular representation into irreducible representations.

They are rather mysterious: they do not turn up very often, and seem to exist by accident. They were sometimes overlooked, in fact, in some earlier claims to have classified the irreducible unitary representations of certain groups.

Several conjectures in mathematics, such as the Selberg conjecture, are equivalent to saying that certain representations are not complementary. For examples see the representation theory of SL2(R). Elias M. Stein (1972) constructed some families of them for higher rank groups using analytic continuation, sometimes called the Stein complementary series.

Related Research Articles

In mathematics, the Langlands program is a web of far-reaching and influential conjectures about connections between number theory and geometry. Proposed by Robert Langlands, it seeks to relate Galois groups in algebraic number theory to automorphic forms and representation theory of algebraic groups over local fields and adeles. Widely seen as the single biggest project in modern mathematical research, the Langlands program has been described by Edward Frenkel as "a kind of grand unified theory of mathematics."

<i>L</i>-function

In mathematics, an L-function is a meromorphic function on the complex plane, associated to one out of several categories of mathematical objects. An L-series is a Dirichlet series, usually convergent on a half-plane, that may give rise to an L-function via analytic continuation. The Riemann zeta function is an example of an L-function, and one important conjecture involving L-functions is the Riemann hypothesis and its generalization.

Representation of a Lie group Group representation

In mathematics and theoretical physics, a representation of a Lie group is a linear action of a Lie group on a vector space. Equivalently, a representation is a smooth homomorphism of the group into the group of invertible operators on the vector space. Representations play an important role in the study of continuous symmetry. A great deal is known about such representations, a basic tool in their study being the use of the corresponding 'infinitesimal' representations of Lie algebras.

In mathematics, a unitary representation of a group G is a linear representation π of G on a complex Hilbert space V such that π(g) is a unitary operator for every gG. The general theory is well-developed in case G is a locally compact (Hausdorff) topological group and the representations are strongly continuous.

In representation theory of Lie groups and Lie algebras, a fundamental representation is an irreducible finite-dimensional representation of a semisimple Lie group or Lie algebra whose highest weight is a fundamental weight. For example, the defining module of a classical Lie group is a fundamental representation. Any finite-dimensional irreducible representation of a semisimple Lie group or Lie algebra can be constructed from the fundamental representations by a procedure due to Élie Cartan. Thus in a certain sense, the fundamental representations are the elementary building blocks for arbitrary finite-dimensional representations.

Compact group Topological group with compact topology

In mathematics, a compact (topological) group is a topological group whose topology is compact. Compact groups are a natural generalization of finite groups with the discrete topology and have properties that carry over in significant fashion. Compact groups have a well-understood theory, in relation to group actions and representation theory.

In mathematics, an Artin L-function is a type of Dirichlet series associated to a linear representation ρ of a Galois group G. These functions were introduced in 1923 by Emil Artin, in connection with his research into class field theory. Their fundamental properties, in particular the Artin conjecture described below, have turned out to be resistant to easy proof. One of the aims of proposed non-abelian class field theory is to incorporate the complex-analytic nature of Artin L-functions into a larger framework, such as is provided by automorphic forms and the Langlands program. So far, only a small part of such a theory has been put on a firm basis.

In mathematics, a Gelfand pair is a pair (G,K) consisting of a group G and a subgroup K that satisfies a certain property on restricted representations. The theory of Gelfand pairs is closely related to the topic of spherical functions in the classical theory of special functions, and to the theory of Riemannian symmetric spaces in differential geometry. Broadly speaking, the theory exists to abstract from these theories their content in terms of harmonic analysis and representation theory.

In mathematics, the orbit method establishes a correspondence between irreducible unitary representations of a Lie group and its coadjoint orbits: orbits of the action of the group on the dual space of its Lie algebra. The theory was introduced by Kirillov for nilpotent groups and later extended by Bertram Kostant, Louis Auslander, Lajos Pukánszky and others to the case of solvable groups. Roger Howe found a version of the orbit method that applies to p-adic Lie groups. David Vogan proposed that the orbit method should serve as a unifying principle in the description of the unitary duals of real reductive Lie groups.

In mathematics, a discrete series representation is an irreducible unitary representation of a locally compact topological group G that is a subrepresentation of the left regular representation of G on L²(G). In the Plancherel measure, such representations have positive measure. The name comes from the fact that they are exactly the representations that occur discretely in the decomposition of the regular representation.

In mathematics, the principal series representations of certain kinds of topological group G occur in the case where G is not a compact group. There, by analogy with spectral theory, one expects that the regular representation of G will decompose according to some kind of continuous spectrum, of representations involving a continuous parameter, as well as a discrete spectrum. The principal series representations are some induced representations constructed in a uniform way, in order to fill out the continuous part of the spectrum.

In mathematics, the Langlands classification is a description of the irreducible representations of a reductive Lie group G, suggested by Robert Langlands (1973). There are two slightly different versions of the Langlands classification. One of these describes the irreducible admissible (g,K)-modules, for g a Lie algebra of a reductive Lie group G, with maximal compact subgroup K, in terms of tempered representations of smaller groups. The tempered representations were in turn classified by Anthony Knapp and Gregg Zuckerman. The other version of the Langlands classification divides the irreducible representations into L-packets, and classifies the L-packets in terms of certain homomorphisms of the Weil group of R or C into the Langlands dual group.

In mathematics, a tempered representation of a linear semisimple Lie group is a representation that has a basis whose matrix coefficients lie in the Lp space

In mathematics, admissible representations are a well-behaved class of representations used in the representation theory of reductive Lie groups and locally compact totally disconnected groups. They were introduced by Harish-Chandra.

In mathematics, the main results concerning irreducible unitary representations of the Lie group SL(2,R) are due to Gelfand and Naimark (1946), V. Bargmann (1947), and Harish-Chandra (1952).

In mathematics, a zonal spherical function or often just spherical function is a function on a locally compact group G with compact subgroup K that arises as the matrix coefficient of a K-invariant vector in an irreducible representation of G. The key examples are the matrix coefficients of the spherical principal series, the irreducible representations appearing in the decomposition of the unitary representation of G on L2(G/K). In this case the commutant of G is generated by the algebra of biinvariant functions on G with respect to K acting by right convolution. It is commutative if in addition G/K is a symmetric space, for example when G is a connected semisimple Lie group with finite centre and K is a maximal compact subgroup. The matrix coefficients of the spherical principal series describe precisely the spectrum of the corresponding C* algebra generated by the biinvariant functions of compact support, often called a Hecke algebra. The spectrum of the commutative Banach *-algebra of biinvariant L1 functions is larger; when G is a semisimple Lie group with maximal compact subgroup K, additional characters come from matrix coefficients of the complementary series, obtained by analytic continuation of the spherical principal series.

Representation theory Branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures

Representation theory is a branch of mathematics that studies abstract algebraic structures by representing their elements as linear transformations of vector spaces, and studies modules over these abstract algebraic structures. In essence, a representation makes an abstract algebraic object more concrete by describing its elements by matrices and their algebraic operations. The theory of matrices and linear operators is well-understood, so representations of more abstract objects in terms of familiar linear algebra objects helps glean properties and sometimes simplify calculations on more abstract theories.

In mathematics, the Langlands–Shahidi method provides the means to define automorphic L-functions in many cases that arise with connected reductive groups over a number field. This includes Rankin–Selberg products for cuspidal automorphic representations of general linear groups. The method develops the theory of the local coefficient, which links to the global theory via Eisenstein series. The resulting L-functions satisfy a number of analytic properties, including an important functional equation.

In mathematics, a uniformly bounded representation of a locally compact group on a Hilbert space is a homomorphism into the bounded invertible operators which is continuous for the strong operator topology, and such that is finite. In 1947 Béla Szőkefalvi-Nagy established that any uniformly bounded representation of the integers or the real numbers is unitarizable, i.e. conjugate by an invertible operator to a unitary representation. For the integers this gives a criterion for an invertible operator to be similar to a unitary operator: the operator norms of all the positive and negative powers must be uniformly bounded. The result on unitarizability of uniformly bounded representations was extended in 1950 by Dixmier, Day and Nakamura-Takeda to all locally compact amenable groups, following essentially the method of proof of Sz-Nagy. The result is known to fail for non-amenable groups such as SL(2,R) and the free group on two generators. Dixmier (1950) conjectured that a locally compact group is amenable if and only if every uniformly bounded representation is unitarizable.

In mathematics, the Gan–Gross–Prasad conjecture is a restriction problem in the representation theory of real or p-adic Lie groups posed by Gan Wee Teck, Benedict Gross, and Dipendra Prasad. The problem originated from a conjecture of Gross and Prasad for special orthogonal groups but was later generalized to include all four classical groups. In the cases considered, it is known that the multiplicity of the restrictions is at most one and the conjecture describes when the multiplicity is precisely one.

References