Qualitative behavior of special functions on compact symmetric spaces

For a symmetric space $\text{G}\text{K}$ of compact type, the highest-weight vectors for representations of G occurring in $\text{L}{}^2\text{(G}\text{K)}$ become heavily concentrated near certain submanifolds of $\text{G}\text{K}$ as the highest weight goes to infinity. This fact is applied to obtain estimates for the spectral measures of the operators qλ = P_λqP_λ, where $\text{P}{}_{\mathrm{\lambda }}\text{: L}{}^2\text{(}\text{G}\text{K}\text{) → V}{}_{\mathrm{\lambda }}$ is an orthogonal projection onto a G-irreducible summand, and q: G/K → $\text{R}$ is a continuous function acting on $\text{L}{}^2\text{(G}\text{K)}$ by multiplication.