Abstract: This paper is motivated by an open question in -adic Fourier theory, that seems to be more difficult than it appears at first glance. Let be a finite extension of with ring of integers and let denote the completion of an algebraic closure of . In their work on -adic Fourier theory, Schneider and Teitelbaum defined and studied the character variety . This character variety is a rigid analytic curve over that parameterizes the set of locally -analytic characters . One of the main results of Schneider and Teitelbaum is that over , the curve becomes isomorphic to the open unit disk. Let denote the ring of bounded-by-one functions on . If is a measure on , then gives rise to an element of . The resulting map is injective. The question is: do we have ? In this paper, we prove various results that were obtained while studying this question. In particular, we give several criteria for a positive answer to the above question. We also recall and prove the ``Katz isomorphism that describes the dual of a certain space of continuous functions on . An important part of our paper is devoted to providing a proof of this theorem which was stated in 1977 by Katz. We then show how it applies to the question. Besides -adic Fourier theory, the above question is related to the theory of formal groups, the theory of integer valued polynomials on , -adic Hodge theory, and Iwasawa theory.
