The heat kernel and Green function of a fourth-order hypoelliptic operator on the Heisenberg group (Q1942753)

On the Heisenberg group \(\mathbb{H}= \mathbb{C}\times\mathbb{R}\) consider the vector fields \(X_{\pm}= {\partial\over\partial x}\pm{1\over 2} y{\partial\over\partial t}\) and \(Y_{\pm}= {\partial\over\partial y}\mp{1\over 2} x{\partial\over\partial t}\), where \(z= x+ iy\in\mathbb{C}\) and \(t\in\mathbb{R}\). Let \({\mathcal L}_{\pm}=-(X^2_{\pm}+ Y^2_{\pm})\), and \({\mathcal L}={\mathcal L}_+{\mathcal L}_-\). By Hörmander's sum of squares theorem, the operators \({\mathcal L}_{\pm}\) are hypoelliptic, and consequently the fourth-order operator \({\mathcal L}\) is hypoelliptic as well. The heat kernel and Green's function associated with \({\mathcal L}\) are the distributions on \(\mathbb{H}\) such that \(e^{-\varrho{\mathcal L}}u= K_\varrho*_{\mathbb{H}}u\) for \(\varrho>0\), and \({\mathcal L}^{-1} u= G*_{\mathbb{H}} u\) for all suitable \(u\). In this paper, the authors give formulas for \(K_\varrho\) and \(G\).