\(\gamma \)-bounded representations of amenable groups (Q977510)

A representation of a locally compact group \(G\) on a Banach space \(X\) is a group homomorphism \(\pi\) from \(G\) into the invertible elements of \(B(X)\), the algebra of all bounded linear operators on \(X\), that is continuous with respect to the given topology on \(G\) and the strong operator topology on \(B(X)\); if \(\sup_{x \in G} \| \pi (x) \| < \infty\), we call \(\pi\) (uniformly) bounded. If \(X\) is a Hilbert space, \(\pi\) is bounded and \(G\) is amenable, then \(\pi\) is similar to a unitary representation: this is a classical result due to J.\ Dixmier. Consequently, \(\pi\) ``extends'' to the group \(C^\ast\)-algebra \(C^\ast(G)\). In this paper, the author proves an extension of this result to a Banach space setting. Given a sequence \(( g_k)_{k=1}^\infty\) of complex valued, independent standard Gaussian variables on some probability space, one defines for all \(x_1, \ldots, x_n \in X\), \[ \left\| \sum_{k=1}^n g_k \otimes x_k \right\|_{G(X)} = \left( \int \left\| \sum_{k=1}^n g(\omega) x_k \right\|_X^2 d\omega \right)^\frac{1}{2}. \] A subset \(F\) of \(B(X)\) is called \textit{\(\gamma\)-bounded} if there is a constant \(C \geq 0\) with the following property: for any \(T_1, \ldots, T_n \in F\) and \(x_1, \ldots, x_n \in X\), we have \[ \left\| \sum_{k=1}^n g_k \otimes Tx_k \right\|_{G(X)} \leq C \left\| \sum_{k=1}^n g_k \otimes x_k \right\|_{G(X)}. \] (There is the closely related notion of \textit{\(R\)-boundedness} where the Gaussian variables are replaced by Rademacher variables.) Any bounded subset of a Hilbert space is automatically \(\gamma\)- and \(R\)-bounded. A representation of \(G\) on \(X\) is called \(\gamma\)-bounded if the set \(\{ \pi(x) : x \in G \}\) is \(\gamma\)-bounded. The author proves---for any Banach space \(X\)---that, if \(G\) is amenable and \(\pi\) is \(\gamma\)-bounded, then \(\pi\) ``extends''---in a sense to be made precise---to \(C^\ast(G)\). The paper contains numerous other interesting results besides this main theorem. For instance, it is shown that if \(A\) is a nuclear \(C^\ast\)-algebra, \(X\) has property \((\alpha)\)---the definition of this property is too technical to be reproduced here---, and \(\pi : A \to B(X)\) is a bounded homomorphism, then \(\pi\) is already \(R\)-bounded, i.e., maps the unit ball of \(A\) onto an \(R\)-bounded subset of \(X\).