A LIOUVILLE THEOREM FOR MATRIX-VALUED HARMONIC FUNCTIONS ON NILPOTENT GROUPS (Q4433344)

A theory of the matrix-valued harmonic functions has been recently developed by the first author and others (mainly co-authors) in a series of papers cited in the paper under review. Let \(M_n\) be a \(C^*\)-algebra of \(n\times n\) complex matrices. Let \(G\) be a locally compact group. An \(M_n\)-valued measure on \(G\) is a norm countably additive \(M_n\) valued set function \(\sigma\) defined on the Borel sets in \(G;\) equivalently, \(\sigma\) is an \(n\times n\) matrix \((\sigma_{ij})\) of complex Borel measures \(\sigma_{ij}\) on \(G.\) The measure \(\sigma\) is said to be a positive \(M_n\)-valued measure if it is \(M_n^+:=\{A^*A:A\in M_n\}\)-valued. A Borel function \(f:G\to M_n\) is said to be \(\sigma\)-harmonic if it satisfies a natural equality \[ f(x)=\int_Gf(xy^{-1})\,d\sigma(y), \] where the above integral can be understood coordinate-wise in the following way \[ \left(\int_Gf(xy^{-1})\, d\sigma(y)\right)_{ij}= \sum_k\int_Gf_{ik}(xy^{-1})\,d\sigma_{kj}(y). \] The main results of the paper are as follows. Theorem 2: Let \(G\) be a locally compact group with centre \(Z\) and let \(\sigma\) be a positive, non-degenerate \(M_n\)-valued measure on \(G\) with \(\| \sigma\| =1.\) Let \(f:G\to M_n\) be a bounded, left uniformly countinuous and \(\sigma\)-harmonic function. Then we have \(f(xz)=f(x)\) for all \(x\in G\) and \(z\in Z.\) And finally the Liouville theorem for nilpotent groups (Theorem 4): Let \(G\) be a locally compact nilpotent group and let \(\sigma\) be a positive, non-degenerate \(M_n\)-valued measure on \(G\) with \(| \sigma| (G)=1\). Let \(f:G\to M_n\) be a bounded, left uniformly continuous \(\sigma\)-harmonic function. Then \(f\) is constant.