Bernstein components via the Bernstein center (Q730329)

Let \(G\) be a reductive \(p\)-adic group and \(\Phi\) an invariant distribution on \(G\) lying in the Bernstein center \(\mathcal{Z}(G)\). This article is devoted to proving that \(\Phi\) defines a constant function on every Bernstein component of the set \(\mathrm{Irr}(G)\) of isomorphism classes of irreducible representations of \(G\) if and only if it is supported on compact elements in \(G\). The direct implication was essentially established by \textit{J.-F. Dat} in [J. Reine Angew. Math. 554, 69--103 (2003; Zbl 1089.22016)] and the main observation of the paper at hand is that Dat's argument can be adapted to prove the converse implication. The authors show in particular that the space of all elements of \(\mathcal{Z}(G)\) supported on compact elements is a subalgebra of \(\mathcal{Z}(G)\). They also conjecture that the subspace of distributions in the Bernstein center supported on topologically unipotent elements is a subalgebra.