The Schwartz algebra of an affine Hecke algebra

For a general affine Hecke algebra H we study its Schwartz completion S. The main theorem is an exact description of the image of S under the Fourier isomorphism. An important ingredient in the proof of this result is the definition and computation of the constant terms of a coefficient of a generalized principal series representation. Finally we discuss some consequences of the main theorem for the theory of tempered representations of H.