Some spherical functions on hyperbolic groups

Abstract

We investigate properties of some spherical functions defined on hyperbolic groups using boundary representations on the Gromov boundary endowed with the Patterson–Sullivan measure class. We prove sharp decay estimates for spherical functions as well as spectral inequalities associated with boundary representations. This point of view on the boundary allows us to view the so-called property RD (also called Haagerup’s inequality) as a particular case of a more general behavior of spherical functions on hyperbolic groups. We also prove that the family of boundary representations studied in this paper, which can be regarded as a one parameter deformation of the boundary unitary representation, are slow growth representations acting on a Hilbert space admitting a proper [Formula: see text]-cocycle.