An abelian $*$-semigroup $S$ is perfect (resp. Stieltjes perfect) if every positive definite (resp. completely so) function on $S$ admits a unique disintegration as an integral of hermitian multiplicative functions (resp. nonnegative such). We prove that every Stieltjes perfect semigroup is perfect. The converse has been known for semigroups with neutral element, but is here shown to be not true in general. We prove that an abelian $*$-semigroup $S$ is perfect if for each $s\in S$ there exist $t\in S$ and $m,n\in {\mathbb{N}}_0$ such that $m+n\ge 2$...

For any topological group $G$ the dual object $\widehat{G}$ is defined as the set of equivalence classes of irreducible unitary representations of $G$ equipped with the Fell topology. If $G$ is compact, $\widehat{G}$ is discrete. In an earlier paper we proved that $\widehat{G}$ is discrete for every metrizable precompact group, i.e. a dense subgroup of a compact metrizable group. We generalize this result to the case when $G$ is an almost metrizable precompact group.

Let H be a real Hilbert space. It is well known that a positive-definite function φ on H is the Fourier transform of a Radon measure on the dual space if (and only if) φ is continuous in the Sazonov topology (resp. the Gross topology) on H. Let G be an additive subgroup of H and let $G_{pc}^{\wedge }$ (resp. $G_b^{\wedge }$) be the character group endowed with the topology of uniform convergence on precompact (resp. bounded) subsets of G. It is proved that if a positive-definite function φ on G is continuous in the Gross topology,...

Let $G$ be a compactly generated locally compact group and let $U$ be a compact generating set. We prove that if $G$ has polynomial growth, then ${\left(U^n\right)}_{n\in \mathbb{N}}$ is a Følner sequence and we give a polynomial estimate of the rate of decay of $\frac{\mu (U^{n+1}\setminus U^n)}{\mu \left(U^n\right)}.$ Our proof uses only two ingredients: the doubling property and a weak geodesic property that we call Property (M). As a matter of fact, the result remains true in a wide class of doubling metric measured spaces including manifolds and graphs. As an application, we obtain a $L^p$-pointwise...

Let WF⁎ be the wave front set with respect to $C^{\infty }$, quasi analyticity or analyticity, and let K be the kernel of a positive operator from $C{₀}^{\infty }$ to ’. We prove that if ξ ≠ 0 and (x,x,ξ,-ξ) ∉ WF⁎(K), then (x,y,ξ,-η) ∉ WF⁎(K) and (y,x,η,-ξ) ∉ WF⁎(K) for any y,η. We apply this property to positive elements with respect to the weighted convolution $u{\ast }_B\phi \left(x\right)=\int u(x-y)\phi \left(y\right)B(x,y)dy$, where $B\in C^{\infty }$ is appropriate, and prove that if $(u{\ast }_B\phi ,\phi )\ge 0$ for every $\phi \in C{₀}^{\infty }$ and (0,ξ) ∉ WF⁎(u), then (x,ξ) ∉ WF⁎(u) for any x.

A subset E of a discrete abelian group is a "Fatou-Zygmund interpolation set" (FZI₀ set) if every bounded Hermitian function on E is the restriction of the Fourier-Stieltjes transform of a discrete, non-negative measure. We show that every infinite subset of a discrete abelian group contains an FZI₀ set of the same cardinality (if the group is torsion free, a stronger interpolation property holds) and that ε-Kronecker sets are FZI₀ (with that stronger interpolation property). ...