Representations of certain semidirect product groups

Abstract

We study a class of semidirect product groups G = N · U where N is a generalized Heisenberg group and U is a generalized indefinite unitary group. This class contains the Poincaré group and the parabolic subgroups of the simple Lie groups of real rank 1. The unitary representations of G and (in the unimodular cases) the Plancherel formula for G are written out. The problem of computing Mackey obstructions is completely avoided by realizing the Fock representations of N on certain U-invariant holomorphic cohomology spaces.