On a family of representations of residually finite groups

Abstract

For a residually finite group $G$, its normal subgroups $G\supset G_1\supset G_2\cdots$ with $\cap_{n\in\mathbb N}G_n=\{e\}$ and for a growth function $\gamma$ we construct a unitary representation $\pi_\gamma$ of $G$. For the minimal growth, $\pi_\gamma$ is weakly equivalent to the regular representation, and for the maximal growth it is weakly equivalent to the direct sum of the quasiregular representations on the quotients $G/G_n$. In the case of intermediate growth we show two examples of different behaviour of $\pi_\gamma$.