UC Irvine

We discuss sharpness in the Hausdorff Young theorem for unimodular groups. First the functions on unimodular locally compact groups for which equality holds in the Hausdorff Young theorem are determined. Then it is shown that the Hausdorff Young theorem is not sharp on any unimodular group which contains the real line as a direct summand, or any unimodular group which contains an Abelian normal subgroup with compact quotient as a semidirect summand. A key tool in the proof of the latter statement is a Hausdorff Young theorem for integral operators, which is of independent interest Whether the Hausdorff Young theorem is sharp on a particular connected unimodular group is an interesting open question which was previously considered in the literature only for groups which were compact or locally compact Abelian. © 1974 American Mathematical Society.