Formula omitted]-singular dichotomy for orbital measures of classical compact Lie groups

Abstract

We prove that for any classical, compact, simple, connected Lie group G, the G-invariant orbital measures supported on non-trivial conjugacy classes satisfy a surprising L 2 -singular dichotomy: Either μ h k ∈ L 2 ( G ) or μ h k is singular to the Haar measure on G. The minimum exponent k for which μ h k ∈ L 2 is specified; it depends on Lie properties of the element h ∈ G . As a corollary, we complete the solution to a classical problem – to determine the minimum exponent k such that μ k ∈ L 1 ( G ) for all central, continuous measures μ on G. Our approach to the singularity problem is geometric and involves studying the size of tangent spaces to the products of the conjugacy classes.