Heat equation on the Heisenberg group: observability and applications (Q507569)

This paper is focused on the heat equation on the Heisenberg group: \[ \begin{cases} (\partial_t-\partial_x^2-(x\partial_z+\partial_y)^2)g=\tilde{h}, &\text{ in }(0,T)\times \Omega, \\ g(t,\pm 1,y,z)=0, & (t,y,z)\in (0, T)\times \mathbb{T}\times \mathbb{T},\\ g(0,x,y,z)=g^0(x,y,z), & (x,y,z)\in \Omega,\end{cases} \tag{1} \] on the domain \(\Omega=(-1,1)\times \mathbb{T}\times \mathbb{T}\), where \(\mathbb{T}\) is the 1D-torus and \(g^0\in L^2(\Omega)\), \(\tilde{h}\in L^2\big((0, T)\times \Omega\big)\). They take the observation regions as slices of the form \(\omega=(a,b)\times \mathbb{T}\times \mathbb{T}\) or tubes \(\omega=(a,b)\times \omega_y\times \mathbb{T}\), where \(-1<a<b<1\) and \(\omega_y\) is an open subset of \(\mathbb{T}\). The authors investigate observability and Lipschitz stability for the above equation. We recall the definitions of these two notions as follows. (Observability): Let \(T>0\) and \(\omega\) be an open subset of \(\Omega\). Equation (1) is observable in \(\omega\) at time \(T\) if there exists a constant \(C_T>0\) such that, for every \(g^{0}\in L^2(\Omega)\), the solution of (1) with \(\tilde{h}=0\) satisfies \[ \int_\Omega |g(T, x,y,z)|^2 \mathrm{dxdydz}\leq C_T\int_0^T\int_\omega |g(t,x,y,z)|^2 \mathrm{dxdydzdt}. \] Let \[ \tilde{h}(t,x,y,z)=R(t,x)h(x,y,z),\tag{2} \] where \(R\in \mathcal{C}([0,T]\times [-1,1])\) and \(h\in L^2(\Omega)\). (Lipschitz stability): Let \(T>0\), let \(0\leq T_0<T_1\leq T\), and let \(\omega\) be an open subset of \(\Omega\). We say equation (1) with \(\tilde{h}\) as in (2) satisfies a Lipschitz stability estimate on \((T_0, T_1)\times \omega\) if there exists a constant \(\tilde{C}_T>0\) such that, for every \(g^0\in L^2(\Omega)\) and \(h\in L^2(\Omega)\), the solution of (1) satisfies \[ \int_\Omega |h(x,y,z)|^2\mathrm{dxdydz}\leq \tilde{C}_T\left(\int_{T_0}^{T_1}\int_\omega |\partial_t g|^2\mathrm{dxdydzdt}+\int_\Omega |Ag(T_1, x,y,z)|^2\mathrm{dxdydz} \right), \] where \(A\) is the Heisenberg Laplacian operator \[ A=-\partial_x^2-(x\partial_z+\partial_y)^2. \] The main results in this article state that the above two properties hold true after a positive minimal time, which depends on the distance between \(\omega\) and the boundary of \(\Omega\). Moreover, the authors also show that observability fails for small time by designing an explicit counterexample. The main arguments in this paper rely on use of the partial Fourier transform on the solution of (1) and a careful analysis of the independent 1D PDEs solved by the Fourier modes with appropriate 1D Carleman estimates. The authors also prove analogous results for the Heisenberg heat equation on the unbounded domain \((-1,1)\times \mathbb{T}\times \mathbb{R}\).