Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 72, No. 12, pp. 4718-4719, December 1975 Mathematics

A theorem on the Schwartz space of a reductive Lie group (associated parabolic subgroups/Plancherel measure/Fourier transform on a reductive Lie group)

JAMES ARTHUR Department of Mathematics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520

Communicated by C.D. Mostow, September 22,1975

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to define the and Fourier transform of an arbitrary tempered distribution on a reductive Lie group.- To this end we define a topologi- cal vector space, e(G),in terms of the classes of irreducible unitary representations of G,which plays the role of a dual Schwartz space. Our main theorem then asserts that the Then L^(Af,K) is canonically isomorphic to the space of usual £ Fourier transform, when restricted to functions Hilbert-Schmidt operators on X(U).For any A â ac we have in the Schwartz space, e(G) defined by Harish-Chandra, A the usual induced representation n-a,h of the group G, as well provides a toooloeical isomorphism from e(G)onto e(G). as the convolution algebra Ccm(G),on X(u). By means of the Let G be a reductive Lie group with Lie-algebra g. We make above isomorphism and the map f -> ruk(f),we obtain a map the three assumptions on G stated in (ref. 1, 5 3), and adopt the conventions and terminology of (ref. 1, 2 and 5 3). In particular K is a maximal compact subgroup of G. Further- from Ccm(G)to LmK). more if P is a parabolic subgroup we have the decomposition Suppose that P' = N'AfA1f' is associated to P and that s Q (a,al). s determines a unique coset in K/K ^\ M, from which we can define a map where N is nilpotent, Af is reductive, and A is a vector group. Fix a minimal parabolic subgroup from &i(M)to &2(M').For fixed u there is a unique map

of G. A parabolic subgroup P = NAM is said to be standard if it contains ^P. When this is so, a, the Lie algebra of A, is con- which depends meromorphically on A E ac, such that for any tained in ^a, the Lie algebra of ("A. A subspace of ^a ob- f set of dis- M(s:X) is unitary if A is purely imaginary. tinct mappings from a onto a' that can be obtained by re- Let Cl(G) be the set of equivalence classes of associated stricting transformations in Q to a. Recall that the standard standard parabolic subgroups of G. For any (P (- Cl (G), cle- parabolic subgroups P and P' corresponding to a and a' are fine ~y^(&)to be the space of measurable functions said to be associated if Q (a,al) is not empty. Given a standard P, we write Z2(M)for the (possibly empty) set of equivalence classes of irreducible unitary square in- with values in L&lf,K), which satisfy the following two tegrable representations of Af. Fix w â &m.Let L>(M,K) conditions : be the space of complex valued measurable functions (1) if PIPrâ (P, s E Q (a,al), w â &~(.ll),and A â ia, then

such that (2) the expression

is finite. Here d\ is a fixed Haar measure on ia. and P,.,(X)is (3) for almost all kl and kt, the function the l'lancherel density, an analytic function on id which de- pends on the measure dA. Harish-Chandra has computed explicitly. belongs to the closed subspace of LZ(lV) generated by the Define L~G)to be the direct sum over all (P Cl(G) of the matrix coefficients of W. Suppose that u is a representation in spaces ~~'(6).Suppose that f is a function in Cp(G). 1:)efine the class w which acts on the Hilbert space H,. Let 3C(o-) be fipto be the function whose value at P â (P, w â &2(^0, the Hilbert space of functions ip from NA\G to H, such that and A â id is the vector Mathematics: Arthur Proc. Nut. Acad. Sci. USA 72 (1975) 4719

ill L>(.lf,K) introduced above. Define vector space. Define Q(&) to be the direct sum over all (P of the spaces ~integer and that D = DAis a differential operator with constant coefficients on ia. For aip L&), we set lla(p[[D,w= a if for some w 1. Harish-Chandra (1971) "On the theory of the Eisenstein

Let QP(6) be the set of those aip E ~y^(&) such that for * "Harmonic analysis on the Schwartz space of a reductive Lie each P (E (P, and all D and n, [[a(p[lD,,, is finite. Q(p(G'),together group I, 11," mimeographed notes, Yale University Mathematics with the above family of seminorms, becomes a topological Department, New Haven, Conn.