Measures with real spectra (Q919563)

This paper is concerned with measures \(\mu\) in the measure algebra M(G) of a locally compact abelian group G for which the spectrum sp(\(\mu\)) is real. The main aim is to produce such a measure for which the range of its Fourier-Stieltjes transform is not dense in its spectrum; the example found is even in \(M_ 0(G)\). (This solves a problem of Katznelson.) The general result is deduced from the special cases in which G is either \({\mathbb{R}}\) or \({\mathbb{T}}\), and the main work is in constructing classes of measures which have real spectra, are continuous and have singular convolution powers. These are produced as weak integrals \(\mu =\int^{1}_{0}\rho_ t dt\) of families of probability measures \(\{\rho_ t\}\) satisfying additional conditions. The condition \[ \delta(x)^*\rho_ t \approx \rho_ t^*\rho_ s - \text{a.e.\((x)\) for } 0<s<t<1 \] produces only measures whose Fourier-Stieltjes transforms have range dense in their spectra. However, the conditions \(\rho_ s^* \rho_ t\approx \rho_ t\) for \(0<s<t<1\), and each \(\rho_ t\) satisfies the character symmetry property (that is, the restriction of any character of M(G) to \(L^ 1(\rho_ t)\) is equivalent in \(L^{\infty}(\rho_ t)\) to a complex multiple of a symmetric function on G) can be made to provide a measure with the desired properties. The constructions are very intricate and involve generalized Riesz products.