$K$-invariant cusp forms for reductive symmetric spaces of split rank one

Abstract: Let $G/H$ be a reductive symmetric space of split rank $1$ and let $K$ be a maximal compact subgroup of $G$. In a previous article the first two authors introduced a notion of cusp forms for $G/H$. We show that the space of cusp forms coincides with the closure of the $K$-finite generalized matrix coefficients of discrete series representations if and only if there exist no $K$-spherical discrete series representations. Moreover, we prove that every $K$-spherical discrete series representation occurs with multiplicity $1$ in the Plancherel decomposition of $G/H$.