Plancherel theorem
Tempered representations on semisimple Lie groups were first defined and studied by Harish-Chandra (using a different but equivalent definition), who showed that they are exactly the representations needed for the Plancherel theorem. They were classified by Knapp and Zuckerman, and used by Langlands in the Langlands classification of irreducible representations of a reductive Lie group "G" in terms of the tempered representations of smaller groups.