Harmonic functions on nilpotent groups

For a probability measure on a locally compact groupG which is not supported on any proper closed subgroup, an elementF ofL (G) is called -harmonic if F(st)d(t)=F(s), for almost alls inG. Constant functions are -harmonic and it is known that for abelianG all -harmonic functions are constant. For other groups it is known that non constant -harmonic functions exist and the question of whether such functions exist on nilpotent groups is open, though a number of partial results are known. We show that for nilpotent groups of class 2 there are no non constant -harmonic functions. Our methods also enable us to give new proofs of results similar to the known partial results.