Sub-Riemannian geodesics and heat operator on odd dimensional spheres (Q2392598)

The authors study the sub-Riemannian geometry of the spheres \(S^{2n+1}\) and \(S^{4n+3}\), arising from the principal \(S^1\)-bundle structure defined by the Hopf map and the principal \(S^3\)-bundle structure given by the quaternionic Hopf map, respectively. The \(S^1\) action leads to the classical contact geometry of \(S^{2n+1}\), while the \(S^3\) action gives another type of sub-Riemannian structure, with a distribution of corank 3. In both cases the metric is given as the restriction of the usual Riemannian metric on the respective horizontal distributions. For the contact \(S^7\) case, the authors give an explicit form of the intrinsic sub-Laplacian and obtain a commutation relation between the sub-Riemannian heat operator and the heat operator in the vertical direction.