Boundary representations of $\lambda$-harmonic and polyharmonic functions on trees

Abstract

On a countable tree $T$, allowing vertices with infinite degree, we consider an arbitrary stochastic irreducible nearest neighbour transition operator $P$. We provide a boundary integral representation for general eigenfunctions of $P$ with eigenvalue $\lambda \in \mathbb{C}$. This is possible whenever $\lambda$ is in the resolvent set of $P$ as a self-adjoint operator on a suitable $\ell^2$-space and the on-diagonal elements of the resolvent ("Green function") do not vanish at $\lambda$. We show that when $P$ is invariant under a transitive (not necessarily fixed-point-free) group action, the latter condition holds for all $\lambda \ne 0$ in the resolvent set. These results extend and complete previous results by Cartier, by Fig\`a-Talamanca and Steger, and by Woess. For those eigenvalues, we also provide an integral representation of $\lambda$-polyharmonic functions of any order $n$, that is, functions $f: T \to \mathbb{C}$ for which $(\lambda \cdot I - P)^n f=0$. This is a far-reaching extension of work of Cohen et al., who provided such a representation for simple random walk on a homogeneous tree and eigenvalue $\lambda =1$. Finally, we explain the (much simpler) analogous results for "forward only" transition operators, sometimes also called martingales on trees.