On spectra of Koopman, groupoid and quasi-regular representations

Abstract

In this paper we investigate relations between Koopman, groupoid and quasi-regular representations of countable groups. We show that for an ergodic measure class preserving action of a countable group G on a standard Borel space the associated groupoid and quasi-regular representations are weakly equivalent and weakly contained in the Koopman representation. Moreover, if the action is hyperfinite then the Koopman representation is weakly equivalent to the groupoid. As a corollary of our results we obtain a continuum of pairwise disjoint pairwise equivalent irreducible representations of weakly branch groups. As an illustration we calculate spectra of regular, Koopman and groupoid representations associated to the action of the 2-group of intermediate growth constructed by the second author in 1980.