Singularities of the Green function of a random walk on a discrete group

LetX be a countable discrete group and let be an irreducible probability onX. The radius of convergence of the Green function is finite, and independent ofx. Let be the period of . We show that for eachxX the singularities of the analytic functionzG(x; z) on the circle {z:|z|=} are precisely the points e ^2ik/d k=0, ...,d–1. In particular, is the only singularity on the circle in the aperiodic cased=1 (which occurs, for example, when (e)>0). This affirms a conjecture ofLalley 5]. When is symmetric, i.e., (x ^–1)=(x) for allxX, d is either 1 or 2. As another particular case of our result, we see that- is then a singularity ofzG (x; z) if and only ifd=2, in which caseX is bicolored. This answers a question ofde la Harpe, Robertson andValette 2].