In this paper, we consider the problem of characterizing positive definite functions on compact two-point homogeneous spaces cross locally compact abelian groups. For a locally compact abelian group $G$ with dual group $\widehat{G}$, a compact two-point homogeneous space $\mathbb{H}$ with normalized geodesic distance $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}$ and a profile function $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}:[-1,1]\times G\rightarrow \mathbb{C}$satisfying certain continuity and integrability assumptions, we show that the positive definiteness of the kernel $((x,u),(y,v))\in (\mathbb{H}\times G)^{2}\mapsto \unicode[STIX]{x1D719}(\cos \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(x,y),uv^{-1})$ is equivalent to the positive definiteness of the Fourier transformed kernels $(x,y)\in \mathbb{H}^{2}\mapsto \widehat{\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}}_{\cos \unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}(x,y)}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE})$, $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}\in \widehat{G}$, where $\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}_{t}(u)=\unicode[STIX]{x1D719}(t,u)$, $u\in G$. We also provide some results on the strict positive definiteness of the kernel.

We show that the finitely generated simple left orderable groups $G_{\!\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}}$ constructed by the first two authors in Hyde and Lodha [Finitely generated infinite simple groups of homeomorphisms of the real line. Invent. Math. (2019), doi:10.1007/s00222-019-00880-7] are uniformly perfect—each element in the group can be expressed as a product of three commutators of elements in the group. This implies that the group does not admit any homogeneous quasimorphism. Moreover, any non-trivial action of the group on the circle, which lifts to an action on the real line, admits a global fixed point. It follows that any faithful action on the real line without a global fixed point is globally contracting. This answers Question 4 of the third author [A. Navas. Group actions on 1-manifolds: a list of very concrete open questions. Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. 2. Eds. B. Sirakov, P. Ney de Souza and M. Viana. World Scientific, Singapore, 2018, pp, 2029–2056], which asks whether such a group exists. This question has also been answered simultaneously and independently, using completely different methods, by Matte Bon and Triestino [Groups of piecewise linear homeomorphisms of flows. Preprint, 2018, arXiv:1811.12256]. To prove our results, we provide a characterization of elements of the group $G_{\!\unicode[STIX]{x1D70C}}$ which is a useful new tool in the study of these examples.

Let $S$ be a discrete inverse semigroup, $l^{1}(S)$ the Banach semigroup algebra on $S$ and $\mathbb{X}$ a Banach $l^{1}(S)$-bimodule which is an $L$-embedded Banach space. We show that under some mild conditions ${\mathcal{H}}^{1}(l^{1}(S),\mathbb{X})=0$. We also provide an application of the main result.

We prove a Tits alternative for topological full groups of minimal actions of finitely generated groups. On the one hand, we show that topological full groups of minimal actions of virtually cyclic groups are amenable. By doing so, we generalize the result of Juschenko and Monod for $\mathbf{Z}$ -actions. On the other hand, when a finitely generated group $G$ is not virtually cyclic, then we construct a minimal free action of $G$ on a Cantor space such that the topological full group contains a non-abelian free group.

Answering a longstanding problem originating in Christensen’s seminal work on Haar null sets [Math. Scand. 28 (1971), 124–128; Israel J. Math. 13 (1972), 255–260; Topology and Borel Structure. Descriptive Topology and Set Theory with Applications to Functional Analysis and Measure Theory, North-Holland Mathematics Studies, 10 (Notas de Matematica, No. 51). (North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam–London; American Elsevier Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1974), iii+133 pp], we show that a universally measurable homomorphism between Polish groups is automatically continuous. Using our general analysis of continuity of group homomorphisms, this result is used to calibrate the strength of the existence of a discontinuous homomorphism between Polish groups. In particular, it is shown that, modulo $\text{ZF}+\text{DC}$, the existence of a discontinuous homomorphism between Polish groups implies that the Hamming graph on $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$ has finite chromatic number.

We consider the notion of the graph product of actions of discrete groups $\{G_{v}\}$ on a $C^{\ast }$-algebra ${\mathcal{A}}$ and show that under suitable commutativity conditions the graph product action $\star _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}}\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{v}:\star _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}}G_{v}\curvearrowright {\mathcal{A}}$ has the Haagerup property if each action $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}_{v}:G_{v}\curvearrowright {\mathcal{A}}$ possesses the Haagerup property. This generalizes the known results on graph products of groups with the Haagerup property. To accomplish this, we introduce the graph product of multipliers associated to the actions and show that the graph product of positive-definite multipliers is positive definite. These results have impacts on left-transformation groupoids and give an alternative proof of a known result for coarse embeddability. We also record a cohomological characterization of the Haagerup property for group actions.

In this short note we first extend the validity of the spectral radius formula, obtained by M. Anoussis and G. Gatzouras, for Fourier–Stieltjes algebras. The second part is devoted to showing that, for the measure algebra on any locally compact non-discrete Abelian group, there are no non-trivial constraints among three quantities: the norm, the spectral radius, and the supremum of the Fourier–Stieltjes transform, even if we restrict our attention to measures with all convolution powers singular with respect to the Haar measure.

In this paper, we study the probability distribution of the word map $w(x_{1},x_{2},\ldots ,x_{k})=x_{1}^{n_{1}}x_{2}^{n_{2}}\cdots x_{k}^{n_{k}}$ in a compact Lie group. We show that the probability distribution can be represented as an infinite series. Moreover, in the case of the Lie group $\text{SU}(2)$, our computations give a nice convergent series for the probability distribution.

A classical result due to Paley and Wiener characterizes the existence of a nonzero function in $L^{2}(\mathbb{R})$, supported on a half-line, in terms of the decay of its Fourier transform. In this paper, we prove an analogue of this result for Damek–Ricci spaces.

We introduce the concept of strong property $(\mathbb{B})$ with a constant for Banach algebras and, by applying a certain analysis on the Fourier algebra of the unit circle, we show that all C*-algebras and group algebras have the strong property $(\mathbb{B})$ with a constant given by $288\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}(1+\sqrt{2})$. We then use this result to find a concrete upper bound for the hyperreflexivity constant of ${\mathcal{Z}}^{n}(A,X)$, the space of bounded $n$-cocycles from $A$ into $X$, where $A$ is a C*-algebra or the group algebra of a group with an open subgroup of polynomial growth and $X$ is a Banach $A$-bimodule for which ${\mathcal{H}}^{n+1}(A,X)$ is a Banach space. As another application, we show that for a locally compact amenable group $G$ and $1<p<\infty$, the space $CV_{P}(G)$ of convolution operators on $L^{p}(G)$ is hyperreflexive with a constant given by $384\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}^{2}(1+\sqrt{2})$. This is the generalization of a well-known result of Christensen [‘Extensions of derivations. II’, Math. Scand. 50(1) (1982), 111–122] for $p=2$.

This paper concerns the study of the global structure of measure-preserving actions of countable groups on standard probability spaces. Weak containment is a hierarchical notion of complexity of such actions, motivated by an analogous concept in the theory of unitary representations. This concept gives rise to an associated notion of equivalence of actions, called weak equivalence, which is much coarser than the notion of isomorphism (conjugacy). It is well understood now that, in general, isomorphism is a very complex notion, a fact which manifests itself, for example, in the lack of any reasonable structure in the space of actions modulo isomorphism. On the other hand, the space of weak equivalence classes is quite well behaved. Another interesting fact that relates to the study of weak containment is that many important parameters associated with actions, such as the type, cost, and combinatorial parameters, turn out to be invariants of weak equivalence and in fact exhibit desirable monotonicity properties with respect to the pre-order of weak containment, a fact that can be useful in certain applications. There has been quite a lot of activity in this area in the last few years, and our goal in this paper is to provide a survey of this work.

Let $G$ be a locally compact group and $K$ a closed subgroup of $G$. Let $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE},$$\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}$ be representations of $K$ and $G$ respectively. Moore’s version of the Frobenius reciprocity theorem was established under the strong conditions that the underlying homogeneous space $G/K$ possesses a right-invariant measure and the representation space $H(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE})$ of the representation $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}$ of $K$ is a Hilbert space. Here, the theorem is proved in a more general setting assuming only the existence of a quasi-invariant measure on $G/K$ and that the representation spaces $\mathfrak{B}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE})$ and $\mathfrak{B}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ are Banach spaces with $\mathfrak{B}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ being reflexive. This result was originally established by Kleppner but the version of the proof given here is simpler and more transparent.

We exhibit the first explicit examples of Salem sets in ℚp of every dimension 0 < α < 1 by showing that certain sets of well-approximable p-adic numbers are Salem sets. We construct measures supported on these sets that satisfy essentially optimal Fourier decay and upper regularity conditions, and we observe that these conditions imply that the measures satisfy strong Fourier restriction inequalities. We also partially generalize our results to higher dimensions. Our results extend theorems of Kaufman, Papadimitropoulos, and Hambrook from the real to the p-adic setting.

In this paper we characterize the Fourier transformability of strongly almost periodic measures in terms of an integrability condition for their Fourier–Bohr series. We also provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a strongly almost periodic measure to be the Fourier transform of a measure. We discuss the Fourier transformability of a measure on $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ in terms of its Fourier transform as a tempered distribution. We conclude by looking at a large class of such measures coming from the cut and project formalism.

In this paper we develop the calculus of pseudo-differential operators corresponding to the quantizations of the form

$$Au(x)=\int_{{\open R}^n}\int_{{\open R}^n}e^{{\rm i}(x-y)\cdot\xi}\sigma(x+\tau(y-x),\xi)u(y)\,{\rm d}y\,{\rm d}\xi,$$

$\tau :{\open R}^n\to {\open R}^n$

$\tau (x)=0$

$\tau (x)=x$

$\tau (x)={x}/{2}$

${\open R}^n$

Free binary systems are shown not to admit idempotent means. This refutes a conjecture of the author. It is also shown that the extension of Hindman’s theorem to nonassociative binary systems formulated and conjectured by the author is false.

The Marcinkiewicz multipliers are $L^{p}$ bounded for $1<p<\infty$ on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^{n}\simeq \mathbb{C}^{n}\times \mathbb{R}$ (Müller, Ricci, and Stein). This is surprising in the sense that these multipliers are invariant under a two parameter group of dilations on $\mathbb{C}^{n}\times \mathbb{R}$, while there is no two parameter group of automorphic dilations on $\mathbb{H}^{n}$. The purpose of this paper is to establish a theory of the flag Lipschitz space on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^{n}\simeq \mathbb{C}^{n}\times \mathbb{R}$ that is, in a sense, intermediate between that of the classical Lipschitz space on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb{H}^{n}$ and the product Lipschitz space on $\mathbb{C}^{n}\times \mathbb{R}$. We characterize this flag Lipschitz space via the Littlewood–Paley theory and prove that flag singular integral operators, which include the Marcinkiewicz multipliers, are bounded on these flag Lipschitz spaces.

Motivated by the definition of a semigroup compactication of a locally compact group and a large collection of examples, we introduce the notion of an (operator) homogeneous left dual Banach algebra (HLDBA) over a (completely contractive) Banach algebra $A$. We prove a Gelfand-type representation theorem showing that every HLDBA over A has a concrete realization as an (operator) homogeneous left Arens product algebra: the dual of a subspace of $A^{\ast }$ with a compatible (matrix) norm and a type of left Arens product $\Box$. Examples include all left Arens product algebras over $A$, but also, when $A$ is the group algebra of a locally compact group, the dual of its Fourier algebra. Beginning with any (completely) contractive (operator) $A$-module action $Q$ on a space $X$, we introduce the (operator) Fourier space $({\mathcal{F}}_{Q}(A^{\ast }),\Vert \cdot \Vert _{Q})$ and prove that $({\mathcal{F}}_{Q}(A^{\ast })^{\ast },\Box )$ is the unique (operator) HLDBA over $A$ for which there is a weak$^{\ast }$-continuous completely isometric representation as completely bounded operators on $X^{\ast }$ extending the dual module representation. Applying our theory to several examples of (completely contractive) Banach algebras $A$ and module operations, we provide new characterizations of familiar HLDBAs over A and we recover, and often extend, some (completely) isometric representation theorems concerning these HLDBAs.

We consider the unital Banach algebra $\ell ^{1}(\mathbb{Z}_{+})$ and prove directly, without using cyclic cohomology, that the simplicial cohomology groups ${\mathcal{H}}^{n}(\ell ^{1}(\mathbb{Z}_{+}),\ell ^{1}(\mathbb{Z}_{+})^{\ast })$ vanish for all $n\geqslant 2$. This proceeds via the introduction of an explicit bounded linear operator which produces a contracting homotopy for $n\geqslant 2$. This construction is generalised to unital Banach algebras $\ell ^{1}({\mathcal{S}})$, where ${\mathcal{S}}={\mathcal{G}}\cap \mathbb{R}_{+}$ and ${\mathcal{G}}$ is a subgroup of $\mathbb{R}_{+}$.

In his seminal work on Sidon sets, Pisier found an important characterization of Sidonicity: A set is Sidon if and only if it is proportionally quasi-independent. Later, it was shown that Sidon sets were proportionally “special” Sidon in several other ways. Here, we prove that Sidon sets in torsion-free groups are proportionally $n$-degree independent, a higher order of independence than quasi-independence, and we use this to prove that Sidon sets are proportionally Sidon with Sidon constants arbitrarily close to one, the minimum possible value.