Discovering the manifold facets of a square integrable representation: from coherent states to open systems

Group representations play a central role in theoretical physics. In particular, in quantum mechanics unitary --- or, in general, projective unitary --- representations implement the action of an abstract symmetry group on physical states and observables. More specifically, a major role is played by the so-called square integrable representations. Indeed, the properties of these representations are fundamental in the definition of certain families of generalized coherent states, in the phase-space formulation of quantum mechanics and the associated star product formalism, in the definition of an interesting notion of function of quantum positive type, and in some recent applications to the theory of open quantum systems and to quantum information.