Abstract.Conditions for boundedness and compactness of product-convolution operators g -» PhCß = h ■ (/» g) on spaces L^G) are studied. It is necessary for boundedness to define a class of "mixed-norm" spaces L,p>q){G) interpolating the Lp(G) spaces in a natural way (L^^ = Z^,). It is then natural to study the operators acting between L(/1?)(G) spaces, where G has a compact invariant neighborhood. The theory of L(i>?)(G) is developed and boundedness and compactness conditions of a nonclassical type are obtained. It is demonstrated that the results extend easily to a somewhat broader class of integral operators. Several known results are strengthened or extended as incidental consequences of the investigation.
Introduction. Convolution by/inLX(R) defines a bounded operator, Cy, on Lp(R) for 1 < p < oo; likewise, pointwise multiplication by A in LX(R) defines a bounded operator Ph on Lp(R). Excepting trivial cases, these operators are never compact. The composition PhCy of two such operators, which we term a productconvolution (PC) operator, is frequently compact. Asking exactly when this occurs motivates this paper. PC operators on Lp of a locally compact group arise in many areas of analysis. In [2] and [3] the compactness of certain PC operators was used to study induced representations of locally compact groups. PC operators (and their adjoint CP operators) arise naturally in many applied problems.Even with A in L^R) and/ in LX(R), we find that the "mixed-norm" spaces of [1] must be introduced to solve the compactness problem for PhC¡. These spaces also arise unavoidably when one attempts to weaken conditions on A and / and keep PhCj bounded. Various mixed-norm conditons on A and/guarantee boundedness of PhCf from Lp to Lq and, in fact, between mixed-norm spaces. Conversely, PhCj may be bounded from Lp to Lq (or from one mixed-norm space to another) with neither A nor/ in any Lr, but both A and/ must belong to mixed-norm spaces. Thus mixed-norm spaces are the natural setting for studying bounded PC operators. We treat a wide class of PC operators and, in all but one case, find necessary and sufficient conditions for compactness. The conditions involve only membership in a mixed-norm space or, in one instance, translational continuity in mixednorm spaces; they are usually easily checked for explicit examples. By applying various manipulations to PC operators, we develop easily applied necessary and sufficient conditions for compactness of a wider variety of integral operators which