HEYDE’S CHARACTERIZATION THEOREM FOR DISCRETE ABELIAN GROUPS

Abstract

AbstractLet X be a countable discrete abelian group with automorphism group Aut(X). Let ξ1 and ξ2 be independent X-valued random variables with distributions μ1 and μ2, respectively. Suppose that α1,α2,β1,β2∈Aut(X) and β1α−11±β2α−12∈Aut(X). Assuming that the conditional distribution of the linear form L2 given L1 is symmetric, where L2=β1ξ1+β2ξ2 and L1=α1ξ1+α2ξ2, we describe all possibilities for the μj. This is a group-theoretic analogue of Heyde’s characterization of Gaussian distributions on the real line.