The Plancherel decomposition for a reductive symmetric space II : representation theory

Abstract

We obtain the Plancherel decomposition for a reductive symmetric space in the sense of representation theory. Our starting point is the Plancherel formula for spherical Schwartz functions, obtained in part I. The formula for Schwartz functions involves Eisenstein integrals obtained by a residual calculus. In the present paper we identify these integrals as matrix coeffcients of the generalized principal series.