Nilpotent Gelfand pairs and spherical transforms of Schwartz functions. I: Rank-one actions on the centre (Q431291)

Let \(N\) be a connected, simply connected, nilpotent Lie group and \(K\) a compact group of automorphisms of \(N\), let \((N, K)\) denote the Gelfand pair, i.e., where the convolution algebra \(L^1(N)^K\) of \(K\)-invariant integrable functions on \(N\) is commutative. The Gelfand spectrum \(\Sigma(N,K)\) of \(L^1(N)^K\) admits natural homeomorphic embeddings in Euclidean spaces \(\mathbb{R}^d\), each associated with a finite \(d\)-tuple \({\mathcal{D}}=(D_1,\dots,D_d)\) of self-adjoint generators of the algebra \(\mathbb{D}(N)^K\) of left- and \(K\)-invariant differential operators on \(N\). The embedded image \(\Sigma_{{\mathcal{D}}}\subset \mathbb{R}^d\) of \(\Sigma(N,K)\) is obtained by assigning to each bounded spherical function \(\phi\) the \(d\)-tuple \((\mu_1(\phi),\dots,\mu_d(\phi))\) of eigenvalues of \(\phi\) as an eigenfunction of \(D_1,\dots,D_d\). The paper under review generalises the above results to other nilpotent Gelfand pairs. Let \({\mathcal{S}}(N)^K\) denote \(K\)-invariant Schwartz functions on \(N\), \({\mathfrak{Z}}\) be the centre of the Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{N}\) of \(N\), \(\mathfrak{O}\) denote a \(K\)-invariant complement of \([{\mathfrak{N}},{\mathfrak{N}}]\) in \(\mathfrak{N}\), where \([{\mathfrak{N}},{\mathfrak{N}}]\) is the derived algebra of \(\mathfrak{N}\). The authors establish the following results: Theorem 1.1. Assume that \(\mathfrak{Z}\) is rank-one and \(\mathfrak{O}\) is irreducible. Then \({\mathcal{S}}(N)^K\) is an isomophism to \({\mathcal{S}}(\Sigma_{\mathcal{D}}):={\mathcal{S}}(\Sigma(\mathbb{R}^d)/\{f:\,\, f_{|_{\Sigma_{\mathcal{D}}}}=0\}.\) Theorem 1.2. Assume that \((N,K_1)\) and \((N, K_2)\) are both nilpotent Gelfand pairs, and that \(K_1\vartriangleleft K_2\). If the result of Theorem 1.1 holds for \((N, K_1)\), then it also holds for \((N,K_2)\).