Let G be the group of R-rational points on a reductive group defined over Q and T an arithmetic subgroup. The aim of this paper is to describe in some detail the Schwartz space (whose definition I recall in Section 1) and in particular to explain a decomposition of this space into constituents parametrized by the T-associate classes of rational parabolic subgroups of G. This is analogous to the more elementary of the two well known decompositions of L2 (T\G) in [20](or [17]), and a proof of something equivalent was first sketched by Langlands himself in correspondence with A. Borel in 1972. (Borel has given an account of this in [8].)Langlands’ letter was in response to a question posed by Borel concerning a decomposition of the cohomology of arithmetic groups, and the decomposition I obtain here was motivated by a similar question, which is dealt with at the end of the paper.
Stable real cohomology of arithmetic groups
