Unitary representations of topological groups

One purpose is to isolate techniques and results in representation theory which do not depend upon additional structure of the groups. Much can be done in the representation theory of compact groups without anything more than the compactness. Similarly, the discrete decomposition of L(Γ\G) for compact quotients Γ\G depends upon nothing more than compactness. Schur orthogonality and inner product relations can be proven for discrete series representations inside regular representations can be discussed without further hypotheses.