Principal series representations of direct limit groups

Abstract

We combine the geometric realization of principal series representations on partially holomorphic cohomology spaces, with the Bott–Borel–Weil theorem for direct limits of compact Lie groups, obtaining limits of principal series representations for direct limits of real reductive Lie groups. We introduce the notion of weakly parabolic direct limits and relate it to the conditions that the limit representations are norm-preserving representations on a Banach space or unitary representations on a Hilbert space. We specialize the results to diagonal embedding direct limit groups. Finally we discuss the possibilities of extending the results to limits of tempered series other than the principal series.