Three theorems on the uniqueness of the Plancherel measure from different viewpoints

Abstract

We consider three uniqueness theorems: one from the theory of meromorphic functions, another one from asymptotic combinatorics, and the third one about representations of the infinite symmetric group. The first theorem establishes the uniqueness of the function~$\exp z$ in a class of entire functions. The second one is about the uniqueness of a random monotone nondegenerate numbering of the two-dimensional lattice~$\Bbb Z^2_+$, or of a nondegenerate central measure on the space of infinite Young tableaux. And the third theorem establishes the uniqueness of a representation of the infinite symmetric group~${\frak S}_{\infty}$ whose restrictions to finite subgroups have vanishingly few invariant vectors. But in fact all three theorems are, up to a nontrivial rephrasing of conditions from one area of mathematics in terms of another area, the same theorem! Up to now, researchers working in each of these areas were not aware of this equivalence. The parallelism of these uniqueness theorems on the one hand, and the difference of their proofs on the other hand call for a deeper analysis of the nature of uniqueness and suggest to transfer the methods of proof between the areas. More exactly, each of these theorems establishes the uniqueness of the so-called Plancherel measure, which is the main object of our paper. In particular, we show that this notion is general for all locally finite groups.