Completeness of location families,translated moments,and uniqueness of charges

Summary A sufficient condition for statistical completeness of location families generated by a probability density in euclidean space is given. As an application, completeness of families generated by a symmetric stable law is proved. Our criterion, complementing a classical result of Wiener and recent work of Isenbeck and Rüschendorf, is in terms of regularity of the generating density and zerofreeness of its characteristic function. Its proof rests on a local version of the convolution theorem for Fourier transforms of tempered distributions. A more general version of the criterion is applicable to apparently different problems, as is illustrated by giving a simultaneous proof of a theorem on translated moments by P. Hall and a uniqueness result of M. Riesz in potential theory.