Harmonic cocycles, von Neumann algebras, and irreducible affine isometric actions

zbMATH Open1373.22012arXiv1612.08944MaRDI QIDQ2407263FDOQ2407263

Authors: Bachir Bekka 

Publication date: 29 September 2017

Published in: The New York Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Let $G$ be a compactly generated locally compact group and $(pi,mathcalH)$ a unitary representation of $G.$ The $1$-cocycles with coefficients in $pi$ which are harmonic (with respect to a suitable probability measure on $G$) represent classes in the first reduced cohomology $$ We show that harmonic $1$-cocycles are characterized inside their reduced cohomology class by the fact that they span a minimal closed subspace of $mathcalH.$ In particular, the affine isometric action given by a harmonic cocycle $b$ is irreducible (in the sense that $mathcalH$ contains no non-empty, proper closed invariant affine subspace) if the linear span of $b(G)$ is dense in $mathcalH.$ The converse statement is true, if $pi$ moreover has no almost invariant vectors. Our approach exploits the natural structure of the space of harmonic $1$-cocycles with coefficients in $pi$ as a Hilbert module over the von Neumann algebra $pi(G{)}^{\prime },$ which is the commutant of $pi(G)$. Using operator algebras techniques, such as the von Neumann dimension, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a factorial representation $pi$ without almost invariant vectors to admit an irreducible affine action with $pi$ as linear part.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.08944

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zbMATH Keywords

von Neumann algebrasvon Neumann dimensionfirst \(\ell^2\)-Betti numberisometric group actions on Hilbert spacesreduced first cohomology

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Unitary representations of locally compact groups (22D10) (C^*)-algebras and (W^*)-algebras in relation to group representations (22D25) Continuous cohomology of Lie groups (22E41)

Cited In (6)

• On \(1\)-cocycles induced by a positive definite function on a locally compact abelian group
• Affinely prime dynamical systems
• On \(L^2\)-cohomology and property (T) for automorphism groups of polyhedral cell complexes
• Nonsingular Poisson suspensions
• Irreducible affine isometric actions on Hilbert spaces
• Harmonic functions on compactly generated groups

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