D-harmonic distributions and global hypoellipticity on nilmanifolds (Q2639291)

Let \(M=\Gamma \setminus N\) be a compact nilpotent nilmanifold, where N is a connected, simple connected real nilpotent Lie group with a discrete subgroup \(\Gamma\), \({\mathcal N}\) is the Lie algebra of N. A system of differential operators \(\{\) \({\mathcal D}_ i\}_{i=1,...,k}\) on M is globally hypoelliptic (GH) if when \({\mathcal D}_ if=g_ i\) with \(f\in {\mathcal D}'(M)\), \(g_ i\in C^{\infty}(M)\) then \(f\in C^{\infty}(M)\). Let \(X_ i\), \(i=1,...,k\), be a system of real vector fields on M induced by the Lie algebra \({\mathcal N}\). The authors study the relationships between (GH) of the second order differential operator \({\mathcal D}=X^ 2_ 1+...+X^ 2_ k\), the constancy of \({\mathcal D}\)-harmonic distributions on M and related algebraic conditions on \(X_ 1,...,X_ k\in {\mathcal N}\).