Uniform Gaussian estimates of the fundamental solutions for heat operators on Carnot groups. (Q1405959)

Let \(G= (\mathbb{R}^N,0)\) be a Carnot group and denote by \(\Delta_G= \sum_{1\leq j\leq m} X^2_j\) its canonical sub-Laplacian. Given a positive definite symmetric matrix \(A= (a_{ij})_{1\leq i,j\leq m}\), let us consider the following heat-type operator on \(\mathbb{R}^{N+1}\) \[ H_A= \sum_{1\leq i,j\leq m} a_{ij} X_i X_j- \partial_t. \] For a fixed \(\lambda\geq 1\) one denotes by \(M_\Delta\) the set of the symmetric matrices \(A\) such that \(\Lambda^{-1}|\xi|^2\leq \langle A\xi,\xi\rangle\leq \Lambda|\xi|^2\), \(\xi\in \mathbb{R}^m\). In this paper, the authors are concerned with existence, qualitative properties and uniform Gaussian estimates for the global fundamental solutions \(\Gamma_A\) for \(H_A\), with \(A\in M_\Lambda\). They also obtain existence and uniqueness theorems of Tikhonov type for Cauchy problems related to \(H_A\). The proofs are simple and direct, relying on few basic tools such as invariant Harnack inequalities and maximum principles.