This book presents an account of recent results on the theory of representations and the harmonic analysis of free groups. It emphasizes the analogy with the theory of representations of noncompact semisimple Lie groups and restricts the focus to a class of irreducible unitary representations.

This book presents an account of recent results on the theory of representations and the harmonic analysis of free groups. It emphasizes the analogy with the theory of representations of noncompact semisimple Lie groups and restricts the focus to a class of irreducible unitary representations.

These notes treat in full detail the theory of representations of the group of automorphisms of a homogeneous tree. The unitary irreducible representations are classified in three types: a continuous series of spherical representations; two special representations; and a countable series of cuspidal representations as defined by G.I. Ol'shiankii. Several notable subgroups of the full automorphism group are also considered. The theory of spherical functions as eigenvalues of a Laplace (or Hecke) operator on the tree is used to introduce spherical representations and their restrictions to discrete subgroups. This will be an excellent companion for all researchers into harmonic analysis or representation theory.