Irreducible decompositions of unitary representations of infinite-dimensional groups (Q2571067)

This paper concerns the problem of irreducible decomposition of unitary representations of topological groups \(G\), including the group \(\text{Diff}_0(M)\) of diffeomorphisms with compact support on smooth manifolds \(M\). It is well known that the problem is affirmative, when \(G\) is a locally compact, separable group. The author extends this result to infinite-dimensional groups with appropriate quasi-invariant measures, and, in particular, shows that every continuous unitary representation of \(\text{Diff}_0(M)\) has an irreducible decomposition under a fairly mild condition. In the first section of this paper the author considers an abstract form of the decomposition problem for unitary representations of general topological groups. In the second section of the paper it is considered the group of diffeomorphisms. Let \(\text{Diff}(M)\) be the group of the \(C^\infty\) diffeomorphisms and \(\text{Diff}^k(M)\) be the group of the \(C^k\) diffeomorphisms of the compact manifold \(M\). Let \(\text{Diff}^*(M)\) and \(\text{Diff}^{*k}(M)\) be the connected components of the identity, respectively. Theorem 1. Let \(M\) be compact, and suppose that we are given a continuous unitary representation \((\mathcal{H}, T)\) of \(\text{Diff}^*(M)\) such that it has a continuous extension to some larger group \(\text{Diff}^{*k}(M)\). Then \((\mathcal{H}, T)\) has a irreducible decomposition. Theorem 2. Let \(M\) be non-compact, and suppose that we are given a continuous unitary representation \((\mathcal{H}, T)\) of \(\text{Diff}_0^*(M)\) that satisfies the following condition: For any compact set \(K\), there exists \(s \equiv s(K)\in \mathbb{N}\) s.t. \(T| \text{Diff}^*(K)\) is continuous with the topology derived from the uniform convergence of the maps, together with their derivatives of order less than or equal to \(s\). Then, \((\mathcal{H}, T)\) has an irreducible decomposition. In the last part of this paper specific examples of unitary representations of \(\text{Diff}_0^*(M)\) and their decomposition are given.