Gelfand pairs and strong transitivity for Euclidean buildings

Abstract

AbstractLet $G$ be a locally compact group acting properly, by type-preserving automorphisms on a locally finite thick Euclidean building $\Delta $, and $K$ be the stabilizer of a special vertex in $\Delta $. It is known that $(G, K)$ is a Gelfand pair as soon as $G$ acts strongly transitively on $\Delta $; in particular, this is the case when $G$ is a semi-simple algebraic group over a local field. We show a converse to this statement, namely that if $(G, K)$ is a Gelfand pair and $G$ acts cocompactly on $\Delta $, then the action is strongly transitive. The proof uses the existence of strongly regular hyperbolic elements in $G$ and their peculiar dynamics on the spherical building at infinity. Other equivalent formulations are also obtained, including the fact that $G$ is strongly transitive on $\Delta $ if and only if it is strongly transitive on the spherical building at infinity.