Annihilator methods for spectral synthesis on locally compact abelian groups (Q293074)

In an earlier paper [Acta Math. Hung. 143, No. 2, 351--366 (2014; Zbl 1324.43004)], the author introduced a method of studying spectral synthesis problems using annihilators of varieties on discrete abelian groups. In the paper under review, the author extends his method to non-discrete locally compact abelian groups. \par Let $C(G)$ be the locally convex space of all continuous functions on $G$ equipped with the topology of uniform convergence on compact sets. The dual of $C(G)$ is identified with $M_c(G)$ of compactly supported complex Borel measures on $G$. By a variety on $G$ one means a translation invariant closed linear subspace of $C(G)$. For subsets $H\subset C(G)$ and $K\subset M_c(G)$, the notions $H^\perp$ and $K^\perp$ are defined in the usual way using the duality $C(G)^*=M_c(G)$. On the other hand, one defines $\operatorname{Ann} H=\{\mu : f*\mu =0, \text{ for all }f\in H \}$. $\operatorname{Ann}K$ is defined in a similar way as a subset of $C(G)$. \par Section 1 of the paper contains several operational properties of the mappings $H \mapsto H^\perp$ and $H \mapsto \operatorname{Ann}H$. For example, Theorem 4 states that for each variety $V\subset W$ in $C(G)$ we have $\operatorname{Ann}V\supset \operatorname{Ann}W$ and for each ideal $I\subset J$ in $M_c(G)$ we have $\operatorname{Ann}I\supset \operatorname{Ann}J.$ \par A nonzero continuous function $f : G \longrightarrow \mathbb{C}$ is called an exponential (or generalized character) if it satisfies the identity $f(x+y)=f(x)f(y)$ for all $x,y\in G$. For a given function $f\in C(G)$, let $\tau (f)$ be the smallest variety containing $f$, and let $M_f$ be the closed ideal in $M_c(G)$ generated by all modified differences of the form $\Delta_{f;y}$. Theorem 9 gives a characterization of exponentials as follows: $M_f$ is proper if and only if $f$ is an exponential. In this case $M_f=\operatorname{Ann} \tau (f)$ is maximal, and $M_c(G)/M_f$ is topologically isomorphic to $\mathbb{C}$. \par Letting $\widetilde G$ denote the set of all exponentials on $G$, one defines the Fourier--Laplace transform of $\mu \in M_c(G)$ as the function $\widehat \mu \colon \widetilde G \longrightarrow \mathbb{C}$, defined by $\widehat \mu (m)=\mu (\widehat m )$. By Theorems 10 and 11, $\widehat \mu$ is a continuous function on $\widetilde G$ and the mapping $\mu \to \widehat \mu$ is a continuous injective algebra homomorphism of $M_c(G)$ into $C(\widetilde G)$. \par Generalized exponential monomials are the subject of Section 4, characterizations of which are given in Theorem 13 and Theorem 14. \par Spectral analysis of varieties is the subject of Section 5. Theorem 15 shows that spectral analysis holds for a variety if and only if every nonzero subvariety of it contains a nonzero generalized exponential monomial. \par Spectral synthesis is discussed in Section 6. Theorem 17 gives a necessary and sufficient condition for a variety to be synthesizable. Theorem 19 shows that if $f\colon G \longrightarrow \mathbb{C}$ is a generalized exponential monomial, which is not an exponential monomial, then $\tau (f)$ is nonsynthesizable.