A new class of Gelfand pairs (Q1336201)

Let \(F\) be a \(p\)-adic field. A pair \((G,H)\) of Lie groups over \(F\) is called a (generalized) Gelfand pair if all unitary representations of \(G\) which can be realized on \(G/H\) are multiplicity-free. The authors show that the following rank one semisimple symmetric spaces are Gelfand pairs: (1) \((\text{SO} (Q), \text{SO} (Q'))\), where \(Q\) is an isotropic nondegenerate quadratic form on an \(n\)-dimensional \(F\)-vector space, and \(Q'\) its restriction to some hyperplane, with \(n \geq 3\); (2) \((\text{SL} (n,F), \text{GL}(n - 1,F))\), with \(n \geq 4\); (3) \((\text{Sp}(n,F), \text{Sp}(n -1,F) \times \text{Sp}(1,F))\), with \(n \geq 3\). -- For lack of a \(p\)-adic notion of invariant differential operator, these results are obtained here from a global study of \(H\)-invariant distributions on the space \(G/H\).