Riesz transforms and Lie groups of polynomial growth (Q1283686)

The paper is devoted to the study of analogues of the Riesz transforms \(\partial _i \Delta^{-1/2}\) for a connected Lie group \(G\) of polynomial growth. The main result states that the second-order Riesz transforms on \(L_2(G;dg)\) are bounded if and only if the group \(G\) is the local direct product of a connected compact Lie group and a connected nilpotent Lie group. The sublaplacian associated with the basis of the Lie algebra \(\mathfrak g\) of the Lie group \(G\) generates a self-adjoint contraction semigroup \(S\) with a strictly positive integral kernel \(K\). It is also proved that \(L_2\)-boundedness of the second-order Riesz transforms is equivalent to the fulfillment of the pointwise Gaussian bounds on the semigroup kernel \(K\) which in turn is equivalent to the fulfillment of appropriate \(L_2\)-bounds for the second derivatives of the semigroup \(S\). Moreover, it is shown that the boundedness of the second-order Riesz transforms is equivalent to the boundedness of the Riesz transforms of all orders and a good asymptotic behavior of the second derivatives of the kernel \(K\) is equivalent to a good asymptotic behavior of all higher order derivatives. These results extend to fractional derivatives setting and imply the boundedness of the Riesz transforms on the spaces \(L_p(G;dg)\) with \(p\in (1,\infty)\).