Decomposition of regular representations for \(U(H)_{\infty}\) (Q1070162)

Let G denote the infinite dimensional group consisting of all unitary operators which are compact perturbations of the identity (on a fixed separable Hilbert space). Kirillov showed that G has a discrete spectrum (as a compact group does). The point of this paper is to show that there are analogues of the Peter-Weyl theorem and Frobenius reciprocity for G. For the left regular representation, the only reasonable candidate for Haar measure is a Gaussian measure. The corresponding \(L^ 2\)- decomposition is analogous to that for a compact group. If X is a flag homogeneous space for G, then there is a unique invariant probability measure on (a completion of) X. Frobenius reciprocity holds, for our surrogate Haar measure fibers over X precisely as in finite dimensions (this is the key observation of the paper). When X is a symmetric space, each irreducible summand contains a unique invariant direction, and this direction is the \(L^ 2\)-limit of the corresponding \((L^ 2\)- normalized) finite dimensional spherical functions.