Small-time asymptotics for subelliptic Hermite functions on \(SU(2)\) and the CR sphere (Q2196599)

\textit{J. J. Mitchell} [J. Funct. Anal. 164, No. 2, 209--248 (1999; Zbl 0928.22010)] studied the small-time behavior of Hermite functions on compact Lie groups. In particular, he demonstrated that, when written in exponential coordinates with a natural rescaling, these functions converge to the classical Euclidean Hermite polynomials. In a subsequent work [\textit{J. J. Mitchell}, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 263, No. 1, 165--181 (2001; Zbl 0997.43007)], he proved that Hermite functions on compact Riemannian manifolds, again written in exponential coordinates with appropriate rescaling, admit asymptotic expansions with a classical Hermite polynomial as the leading coefficient. In the paper under review, the authors investigate heat kernels related to the natural subRiemannian structure on \(\mathrm{SU}(2)\simeq \S^3\) and, more generally, on higher-order odd-dimensional spheres. More specifically, they prove that under a natural scaling, the small-time behavior of the logarithmic derivatives of the subelliptic heat kernel on \(\mathrm{SU}(2)\) converges to their analogues on the Heisenberg group at time 1. Next, they generalize these results to the CR sphere \(\S^{2d+1} \) equipped with their natural subRiemannian structure, where the limiting spaces are now the higher-dimensional Heisenberg groups. In other words, they obtain similar results as in [Mitchell, loc. cit.] for the Hermite functions on the CR spheres.