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We obtain sufficient and necessary conditions for the Choquet-Deny theorem to hold in the class of compactly generated totally disconnected locally compact groups of polynomial growth, and in a larger class of totally disconnected generalized $\ov{FC}$-groups. The following conditions turn out to be equivalent when $G$ is a metrizable compactly generated totally disconnected locally compact group of polynomial growth: (i) the Choquet-Deny theorem holds for $G$; (ii) the group of inner automorphisms of $G$ acts distally on $G$; (iii) every inner automorphism of $G$ is distal; (iv) the contraction subgroup of every inner automorphism of $G$ is trivial; (v) $G$ is a SIN group. We also show that for every probability measure $\mu$ on a totally disconnected compactly generated locally compact second countable group of polynomial growth, the Poisson boundary is a homogeneous space of $G$, and that it is a compact homogeneous space when the support of $\mu$ generates $G$., Comment: 15 pages

Let $G$ be a locally compact group and $\pi$ a representation of $G$ by weakly^* continuous isometries acting in a dual Banach space $E$. Given a probability measure $\mu$ on $G$ we study the Choquet-Deny equation $\pi(\mu)x=x$, $x\in E$. We prove that the solutions of this equation form the range of a projection of norm 1 and can be represented by means of a ``Poisson formula'' on the same boundary space that is used to represent the bounded harmonic functions of the random walk of law $\mu$. The relation between the space of solutions of the Choquet-Deny equation in $E$ and the space of bounded harmonic functions can be understood in terms of a construction resembling the $W^*$-crossed product and coinciding precisely with the crossed product in the special case of the Choquet-Deny equation in the space $E=B(L^2(G))$ of bounded linear operators on $L^2(G)$. Other general properties of the Choquet-Deny equation in a Banach space are also discussed., Comment: 30 pages