Huygens' principle and a Paley-Wiener type theorem on Damek-Ricci spaces (Q617047)

The Cauchy problem for the modified wave equation \((\mathcal{L}+a)u=u_{tt}\) is considered with conditions \(u(\cdot,0)=f\) and \(u_t(\cdot,0)=g,\) \(f,g\in C_c^\infty(X),\) where \(\mathcal{L}\) is the Laplace-Beltrami operator on a Riemannian manifold \(X\) and \(a\) is a suitable constant. It is said that the Huygens' principle holds for this problem if the support of the solution \((x,t)\to u(x,t)\) is contained in the set \[ \{(x,t)\in X\times(0,\infty): t-R<d(x,x_0)<t+R\} \] whenever \(f\) and \(g\) are supported in the geodesic ball of radius \(R\) centered at \(x_0.\) Hadamard not only raised the question of finding all Riemannian manifolds \(X\) for which the problem in question satisfies Huygens' principle but also proved that for this a necessary condition is that the dimension of \(X\) be odd. It is proved in this paper that Huygens' principle for such a modified wave equation holds true on odd dimensional Damek-Ricci spaces. The authors also show exponential and strict versions of the principle of equipartition of energy and prove a Paley-Wiener type theorem for the inverse of the Helgason Fourier transform on Damek-Ricci spaces.