A twisted Burnside theorem for countable groups and Reidemeister numbers

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to prove for finitely generated groups of type I the following conjecture of A.Fel'shtyn and R.Hill, which is a generalization of the classical Burnside theorem. Let G be a countable discrete group, f one of its automorphisms, R(f) the number of f-conjugacy classes, and S(f)=# Fix (f^) the number of f-invariant equivalence classes of irreducible unitary representations. If one of R(f) and S(f) is finite, then it is equal to the other. This conjecture plays an important role in the theory of twisted conjugacy classes and has very important consequences in Dynamics, while its proof needs rather sophisticated results from Functional and Non-commutative Harmonic Analysis. We begin a discussion of the general case (which needs another definition of the dual object). It will be the subject of a forthcoming paper. Some applications and examples are presented.