The operator algebra content of the Ramanujan-Petersson problem (Q2282968)

Summary: Let \(G\) be a discrete countable group, and let \(\Gamma\) be an almost normal subgroup. In this paper we investigate the classification of (projective, with 2-cocycle \(\varepsilon\in H^2(G,\mathbb T))\) unitary representations \(\pi\) of \(G\) into the unitary group of the Hilbert space \(l^2(\Gamma, \varepsilon)\) that extend the (projective, with 2-cocycle \(\varepsilon )\) unitary left regular representation of \(\Gamma \). Representations with this property are obtained by restricting to \(G\) (projective) unitary square integrable representations of a larger semisimple Lie group \(\overline{G} \), containing \(G\) as dense subgroup and such that \(\Gamma\) is a lattice in \(\bar{G} \). This type of unitary representations of \(G\) appear in the study of automorphic forms. We obtain a classification of such (projective) unitary representations and hence we obtain that the Ramanujan-Petersson problem regarding the action of the Hecke algebra on the Hilbert space of \(\Gamma \)-invariant vectors for the unitary representation \(\pi\otimes \overline{\pi}\) is an intrinsic problem on the outer automorphism group of the skewed, crossed product von Neumann algebra \({\mathscr L(G \rtimes_{\varepsilon} L^{\infty}(\mathscr G,\mu))} \), where \(\mathscr G\) is the Schlichting completion of \(G\) and \(\mu\) is the canonical Haar measure on \(\mathscr G\).