Spectral theory of group representations and their nonstandard hull

We construct the nonstandard hull of a not necessarily bounded strongly continuous representationU of the locally compact semigroupS on a Banach spaceE. Then we apply our results to the theory of the spectrum σ (U) ofU, mainly in cases whereS is an abelian group, e.g.S=R. First of all we obtain generalizations to the unbounded case of results known for the bounded one. Secondly we introduce the notion of the Riesz part R σ(U) of σ(U) and characterize those representations satisfying σ(U)=R σ(U). We illustrate the theory developed so far by applications to representations on Banach lattices. Dedicated to Prof. Dr. H. H. Schaefer on the occasion of his 60th birthday