Asymptotic finite propagation speed for heat diffusion on certain Riemannian manifolds (Q1185741)

The authors extend to general Riemannian symmetric spaces of the noncompact type a result found by \textit{E. B. Davies} [Heat kernels and spectral theory (Cambridge Univ. Press, London/New York) (1989; Zbl 0699.35006)] concerning the heat kernel on the real hyperbolic spaces. They show that the heat produced in a point does not diffuse homogeneously but concentrates asymptotically in an annulus centered at the initial point and moving to infinity with finite speed. In the higher rank case another possibility appears. The heat kernel also concentrates along the \(K\)-orbit of the \(\rho\)-axis, \(\rho\) being the half sum of all positive roots of the Riemannian symmetric space. By applying wave equation techniques developed by \textit{M. E. Taylor} [Duke Math. J. 58, 723-793 (1989; Zbl 0691.58043)] and by \textit{J. Cheeger} et al. [J. Differ. Geom. 17, 15-53 (1982; Zbl 0493.53035)] an analogous result is proven for complete, noncompact Riemannian manifolds such that the volume of the geodesic balls grows at most exponentially and the \(L^ 2\)-spectrum of the Laplacian is bounded above. The last remark is devoted to a partial extension of the previous results to the vector bundle case.