My question is whether Dirac-type distributions over an Abelian group define a basis of the Schwartz-Bruhat space $\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$ of tempered distributions on $G$, so that any distribution $f\in\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$ can be expressed as an integral of Dirac deltas $$f=\int_X \mathrm{d}\mu(x)\,\, f(x)\, \delta_x $$ for some subset $X$ of $G$, some measure $\mu$ on $X$ and some function $f:X\rightarrow \mathbb{C}$. Maybe this question is basic for the experts, but I struggle with it. (I am a physicist and I lack background on this type of harmonic analysis.) I also thought it was to advanced for `math.SE`, but please let me know if I you think it fits there better. I have attempted to solve this myself. You can take a look at my **attempt** and a at more *precise* version of my **question** below. ---- Let $G$ be a Hausdorff locally compact Abelian group, $\mathcal{H}=L^2(G)$ the Hilbert space of two-integrable functions with its usual inner product. Let $\mathcal{S}(G)$ be the [Schwartz-Bruhat space][1] [ [2][2], [3][3] ] of smooth functions of rapid decay over $G$ and $\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$ its continuous dual vector space of **tempered distributions**, which I want to view it as a $\mathbb{C}$-vector space. The triple $$\mathcal{S}(G)\subset \mathcal{H}\subset \mathcal{S}(G)^\times$$ is a rigged Hilbert space. **Question 1**. One of the properties of the dual $\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$ is that it contains all Dirac-type delta distributions $\delta_g$ defined as $$\langle \delta_g , \varphi\rangle = \varphi(g).$$ I would like to understand for which groups the set $\{\delta_g,\, g\in G\}$ defines a basis in $\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$. I assume already that $\mathcal{H}$ has a basis. The easy example is when $G$ is a finite Abelian group: in this case the $\delta_g$ represent Kronecker deltas and it can be shown that they define a basis of the dual space $\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$ using linear algebra. **Question 2.** If one can write a distribution $f$ as $f=\int_X \mathrm{d}\mu(x)\,\, f(x)\, \delta_x$, does $X$ coincide with the support of $f$ (as a distribution)? **Question 3.** If the answer to the above questions is negative I would be very interested to know what happens for groups of the form $$G=\mathbb{R}^a\times\mathbb{Z}^b\times \mathbb{R/Z}^c\times F$$ where $F$ is finite Abelian. These is actually the class of groups I am working with on a project. These groups are compactly-generated LCA groups, and are sometimes easier to work with. ---- **My attempt.** Since every tempered distribution $T$ can be obtained as the limit of a sequence $\{f_n\}_n$ of Schwartz-Bruhat functions, my (possibly wrong) intuition that I $\{\delta_g\}$ should define a basis of $\mathcal{S}(G)^\times$, because one should be able to write every function of the sequence as a linear combination of deltas *exclusively* $$ f_n = \int_{G} \mathrm{d} g \,\, f_n(g)\,\,\delta_g$$ (where we integrate over the Haar measure of $G$), I think this should imply that $f$ is a linear combination of deltas in the limit, due to the fact that in the limit $$\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty}\langle f_n , \varphi \rangle= \langle f, \varphi \rangle$$ for every test function $\varphi \in \mathcal{S}(G)$. But honestly, I do not know whether this that this argument is 100% correct and neither I know whether one can formalize it. I wonder also whether this type of argument could work for the class of groups $G=\mathbb{R}^a\times\mathbb{Z}^b\times \mathbb{R/Z}^c\times F$. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartz%E2%80%93Bruhat_function [2]: http://archive.numdam.org/ARCHIVE/BSMF/BSMF_1961__89_/BSMF_1961__89__43_0/BSMF_1961__89__43_0.pdf [3]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022123675900051