Irreducible Koopman representations for nonsingular actions on boundaries of rooted trees

In this paper we study random walks on a finitely generated group $G$ which has a free action on a $\mathbb{Z}^n$-tree. We show that if $G$ is non-abelian and acts minimally, freely and without inversions on a locally finite $\mathbb{Z}^n$-tree $\Gamma$ with the set of open ends ${\rm Ends}(\Gamma)$, then for every non-degenerate probability measure $\mu$ on $G$ there exists a unique $\mu$-stationary probability measure $\nu_\mu$ on ${\rm Ends}(\Gamma)$, and the space $({\rm ...

The goal of the paper is to describe new connections between representation theory and algebraic combinatorics on one side, and probability theory on the other side. The central result is a construction, by essentially algebraic tools, of a family of Markov processes. The common state space of these processes is an infinite dimensional (but locally compact) space Omega. It arises in representation theory as the space of indecomposable characters of the infinite-dimensional ...

Given a $1$-cocycle $b$ with coefficients in an orthogonal representation, we show that any finite dimensional summand of $b$ is cohomologically trivial if and only if $\| b(X_n) \|^2/n$ tends to a constant in probability, where $X_n$ is the trajectory of the random walk $(G,\mu)$. As a corollary, we obtain sufficient conditions for $G$ to satisfy Shalom's property $H_{\mathrm{FD}}$. Another application is a convergence to a constant in probability of $\mu^{*n}(e) -\mu^{*n}(g...

The Poisson boundary of a finite direct product of affine automorphism groups of homogeneous trees is considered. The Poisson boundary is shown to be a product of ends of trees with a hitting measure for spread-out, aperiodic measures of finite first moment whose closed support generates a subgroup which is not fully exceptional. The Poisson boundary of a semi-direct product associated with every automorphism $\alpha$ and tidy compact open subgroup $V$ in a locally compact, t...

These myh lectures at the Park City conference in 1998.

We study isometric actions of tree automorphism groups on the infinite-dimensional hyperbolic spaces. On the one hand, we exhibit a general one-parameter family of such representations and analyse the corresponding equivariant embeddings of the trees, showing that they are convex-cocompact and asymptotically isometric. On the other hand, focusing on the case of sufficiently transitive groups of automorphisms of locally finite trees, we classify completely all irreducible repr...

We develop the theory of Patterson-Sullivan measures on the boundary of a locally compact hyperbolic group, associating to certain left invariant metrics on the group measures on the boundary. We later prove that for second countable, non-elementary, unimodular locally compact hyperbolic groups the associated Koopman representations are irreducible and their isomorphism type classifies the metric on the group up to homothety and bounded additive changes, generalizing a theore...

We compute the spectral form of the Koopman representation induced by a natural boolean action of $L^0(\lambda, {\mathbb T})$ identified earlier by the authors. Our computation establishes the sharpness of the constraints on spectral forms of Koopman representations of $L^0(\lambda, {\mathbb T})$ previously found by the second author.

How does an irreducible representation of a group behave when restricted to a subgroup? This is part of branching problems, which are one of the fundamental problems in representation theory, and also interact naturally with other fields of mathematics. This expository paper is an up-to-date account on some new directions in representation theory highlighting the branching problems for real reductive groups and their related topics ranging from global analysis of manifolds ...

Answering a question of J. Rosenberg, we construct the first examples of infinite characters on $GL_n(\mathbf{K})$ for a global field $\mathbf{K}$ and $n\geq 2.$ The case $n=2$ is deduced from the following more general result. Let $G$ a non amenable countable subgroup acting on locally finite tree $X$. Assume either that the stabilizer in $G$ of every vertex of $X$ is finite or that the closure of the image of $G$ in ${\rm Aut}(X)$ is not amenable. We show that $G$ has uncou...