The Rockland condition for nondifferential convolution operators (Q1124081)

A connected simply connected Lie group \({\mathcal N}\) is said to be homogeneous if its Lie algebra N admits a positive graduation. Then \({\mathcal N}\) is nilpotent; thus may be identified with N via the exponential mapping. Moreover, there exists a group \((\delta_ s)_{s>0}\) of dilations of N and \({\mathcal N}\) associated with the graduation. Let \((\mu_ t)_{t>0}\) be a continuous convolution semigroup of symmetric probability measures on \({\mathcal N}\) that is \((\delta_ s)_{s>0}\)-stable with exponent \(r>0\) i.e. \(\delta_ s(\mu_ t)=\mu_{s^ rt}\) for all \(s,t>0\). The generating functional P of \((\mu_ t)_{t>0}\) is defined at least on the space \({\mathcal D}({\mathcal N})\) of test functions on \({\mathcal N}\). With every unitary representation \(\pi\) of \({\mathcal N}\) there is canonically associated a closable operator \(\pi_ p\) on the space \(C^{\infty}(\pi)\) of smooth vectors for \(\pi\) [cf. \textit{M. Duflo}, Ann. Inst. Fourier 28, No.3, 225-249 (1978; Zbl 0368.22006)]. Now the main result of the paper can be formulated: All the measures \(\mu_ t\) are absolutely continuous with square integrable densities (with respect to Haar measure) iff P satisfies the `Rockland condition': For every nontrivial irreducible unitary representation \(\pi\) of \({\mathcal N}\) the closure \(\overline{\pi_ p}\) of \(\pi_ p\) is injective on its domain. The difficult proof makes heavy use of the machinery of \textit{B. Helffer} and \textit{J. Nourrigat} developed for the investigation of hyperelliptic operators on graduated Lie groups [cf. Commun. Partial Differ. Equations 4, 899-958 (1979; Zbl 0423.35040)]. The proof is by induction on the dimension of \({\mathcal N}\); together with some desintegration techniques for representations. For the Heisenberg group the author has proved this theorem previously by another method [Stud. Math. 79, 105-138 (1984; Zbl 0563.43002)]. Reviewer's remark: It is easy to see that the Rockland condition is equivalent to the condition that the measures \(\mu_ t\) are full i.e. are not supported by a proper closed connected (normal) subgroup of \({\mathcal N}\) [cf. \textit{W. Hazod}, \textit{S. Nobel} in: Probability Measures on Groups IX, Proc. Oberwolfach 1988, Lect. Notes Math. 1379, 90-106 (1989)].