Solvability of invariant sublaplacians on spheres and group contractions (Q2569606)

Summary: In the first part of this paper we study the local and global solvability and the hypoellipticity of a family of left invariant sublaplacians \({\mathcal L}_{\alpha}\) on the spheres \(S^{2n+1}\simeq \mathrm{U}(n+1)/\mathrm{U}(n)\). In the second part, we introduce a larger family of left invariant sublaplacians \({\mathcal L}_{\alpha,\beta}\) on \(S^3\simeq \mathrm{SU}(2)\) and study the corresponding properties by means of a Lie group contraction to the Heisenberg group.