Harmonic functions of linear growth on solvable groups (Q503229)

The authors prove the following conjecture (the converse direction of Klein's theorem) for solvable groups: Let \(\mathbb{G}\) be a finitely generated group, and let \(\mu\) be a symmetric probability measure on \(\mathbb{G}\), with finite support that generates \(\mathbb{G}\). Let \(HF_k (\mathbb{G},\mu)\) denote the space of \(\mu\)-harmonic functions on \(\mathbb{G}\) whose growth is bounded by a degree \(k\) polynomial. Then the following are equivalent: (1) \(\mathbb{G}\) is virtually nilpotent. (2) \(\mathbb{G}\) has polynomial growth. (3) \(\dim HF_k (\mathbb{G},\mu) < \infty\) for all \(k\). (4) There exists \(k \geq 1\) such that \(\dim HF_k (\mathbb{G},\mu) < \infty\). The investigation is motivated by Kleiner's proof for Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth.