Uncertainty principles on two step nilpotent Lie groups (Q5949624)

Roughly speaking, uncertainty principles on the real line say that a function \(f\) and its Fourier transform \(\widehat f\) cannot simultaneously be sharply localized. A classical result in this context is Hardy's theorem which can be stated as follows. For \(s>0\), let \(e_s(x)= e^{s x^2}\), \(x\in\mathbb{R}\). If \(f:\mathbb{R} \to\mathbb{C}\) is a measurable function and \(a,b>0\) are such that \(ab>1\) and \(e_{a\pi} f\in L^\infty (\mathbb{R})\) and \(e_{b\pi}\widehat f\in L^\infty (\mathbb{R})\), then \(f=0\). A generalization, due to Cowling and Price, deals with the situation that \(e_{a\pi} f\in L^p(\mathbb{R})\) and \(e_{b\pi}\widehat f \in L^q(\mathbb{R})\) for some \(1\leq p\), \(q\leq\infty\), \(\min(p,q) <\infty\). Cosiderable effort has been made to prove analogues for various classes of type I Lie groups. In this general setting explicit knowledge of the irreducible representations and the Plancherel formula is required. The paper under review deals with 2-step nilpotent simply connected Lie groups, and the main result is an analogue of the Cowling-Price theorem when \(1\leq p\leq\infty\) and \(2\leq q<\infty\). For the Heisenberg groups this has been shown earlier by \textit{S. G. Bagchi} and the author [J. Aust. Math. Soc. A 65, 289-302 (1998; Zbl 0930.22009)]. The second purpose of the paper is to prove a Heisenberg uncertainty principle for 2-step nilpotent simply connected Lie groups, thus extending a result of \textit{S. Thangavelu} [Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci., Math. Sci. 100, 137-145 (1990; Zbl 0731.42024)]. Since an analogue of Hardy's theorem has recently been established for arbitrary simply connected nilpotent Lie groups [\textit{E. Kaniuth} and \textit{A. Kumar}, Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 131, 487-494 (2001; Zbl 0996.43004)], the question arises of whether Heisenberg and Cowling-Price type results can be shown in this greater generality.