Tortrat groups—Groups with a nice behavior for sequences of shifted convolution powers

For a locally compact groupG a condition in terms of probability measures and conjugation is introduced, which implies that limits of shifted convolution powers are always translates of idempotent measures. Such groups are called Tortrat groups. The connection between Tortrat groups and shifted convolution powers is established by the method of tail idempotents. Some construction principles for Tortrat groups are given and applied to show that compact groups, abelian groups, and more generally SIN-groups, as well as MAP-groups and almost connected nilpotent groups are of this type. The class of Tortrat groups is compared with another class investigated by A. Tortrat.