Group structure and the pointwise ergodic theorem for connected amenable groups

Let G be a connected amenable group (thus, an extension of a connected normal solvable subgroup R by a connected compact group $\text{K =}\text{G}\text{R}$). We show how to explicitly construct sequences {U_n} of compacta in G in terms of the structural features of G which have the following property: For any “reasonable” action G × L^p(X, μ) ↓ L^p(X, μ) on an L^p space, 1 <p < ∞, and any f ∈ L^p(X, μ), the averages

$\text{A}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{f=}\text{1}\text{|U}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{|}\text{∫}\text{U}{}_{\mathrm{n}}\text{T}{}_{\mathrm{g}}{}^{\mathrm{?1f}}\text{dg (|E|=}\text{left Haar measure in}\text{G)}$

converge in L^p norm, and pointwise μ-a.e. on X, to G-invariant functions $\text{f1}$ in L^p(X, μ). A single sequence {U_n} in G works for all L^p actions of G. This result applies to many nonunimodular groups, which are not handled by previous attempts to produce noncommutative generalizations of the pointwise ergodic theorem.