A theorem à la Fatou for the square root of Poisson kernel in \(\delta\)-hyperbolic spaces and decay of matrix coefficients of boundary representations (Q1742942)

If \({\mathbb D}\) denotes the unit disc and \(f\in L^1(\partial {\mathbb D},\frac{\text{d}\theta}{2\pi})\), the Poisson transform of \(f\) is defined by \[ Pf(z)=\int_{\partial {\mathbb D}}f(\theta)P(z,\theta)\frac{\text{d}\theta}{2\pi} \] for \(z\in {\mathbb D}\), where \(P(z,\theta)=\frac{1-|z|^2}{|z-\text{e}^{\text{i}\theta}|^2}\) and \(\frac{\text{d}\theta}{2\pi}\) is the normalized Lebesgue measure on the unit circle. If the Poisson kernel \(P(z,\theta)\) is replaced by its normalized square root, \[ \frac{P^{1/2}(z,\theta)}{\int_{\partial {\mathbb D}}P^{1/2}(z,\theta)\frac{\text{d}\theta}{2\pi}}\,, \] the new transform was shown in [\textit{P. Sjögren}, Lect. Notes Math. 1096, 544--548 (1984; Zbl 0563.31003)] to converge to \(f\) for almost all \(\theta\) as \(z\rightarrow \text{e}^{\text{i}\theta}\) remaining in a certain ``weak nontangential domain''. This ``theorem à la Fatou'' has been generalized to Riemannian symmetric spaces and to the CAT(-1) spaces. The author generalizes this theorem to \(\delta\)-hyperbolic spaces, a notion introduced by Mikhail Gromov in the 1980s. The Poisson kernels and the measures are defined in the spirit of the so-called Patterson-Sullivan conformal densities following \textit{M. Coornaert} [Pac. J. Math. 159 (2), 241--270 (1993; Zbl 0797.20029)], in the context of discrete groups of isometries of the \(\delta\)-hyperbolic spaces. These Poisson kernels, giving rise to boundary representations of the discrete isometry groups, lead to results concerning the decay of certain matrix coefficients. These results involve the so-called weak inequality of Harish-Chandra (see Definition 6.1.17 in [\textit{R. Gangolli} and \textit{V. S. Varadarajan}, Harmonic Analysis of Spherical Functions on Real Reductive Groups (Springer, New York) (1988; Zbl 0675.43004)]) and the so-called property RD (rapid decay) introduced in [\textit{U. Haagerup}, Invent. Math. 50 (3), 279--293 (1978/79; Zbl 0408.46046)].