Spectral transform for the sub-Laplacian on the Heisenberg group (Q1110033)

This paper continues the authors' investigation of nilpotent groups related to quantum mechanical systems whose Hamiltonians have polynomial interactions [see e.g. the authors, Publ. Res. Inst. Math. Sci. 21, 969- 999 (1985; Zbl 0601.58027)]. In this paper the authors show how to solve the heat equation for the Heisenberg group - which is associated with the quantum mechanical system of a massive spinless particle in a constant external magnetic field - by diagonalizing the sub-Laplacian L of the Heisenberg group. Their method makes use of the fact that on appropriate Hilbert space the second order invariant operator L of a nilpotent group becomes multiplication operator.