On fundamental differential operators and the p-plane Radon transform (Q748817)

The author considers the Euclidean space \({\mathbb{E}}^ n\) and the manifold \(E_{n,p}\) of all p-dimensional planes in \({\mathbb{E}}^ n\) to be homogeneous spaces of the Euclidean group \({\mathbb{E}}(n)\). The Lie algebra e(n) of \({\mathbb{E}}(n)\) acts on \({\mathbb{E}}^ n\) and \(E_{n,p}\) by fundamental vector fields. He defines two mappings \(\lambda\) (\(\Lambda\)) of the complexified universal enveloping algebra \({\mathcal U}(n)\) of e(n) into the algebras of differential operators on \({\mathbb{E}}^ n(E_{n,p})\) by \(\lambda (\Lambda)(Y)f(x):=(d/dt)f(\exp -tY\cdot x)|_{t=0},\quad \lambda (Y_ 1...Y_ r):=\lambda (Y_ 1)...\lambda (Y_ r),\) resp. \(\Lambda,\quad Y,Y_ 1,...,Y_ r\in e(n);\) \(f\in C^{\infty};\) \((Y_ 1...Y_ r)\in {\mathcal U}(n).\) He chooses the standard basis \((Z_ i)\) of the abelian Lie algebra \({\mathbb{R}}^ n\), a basis \((X_{ij})_{i<j}\) of skew symmetric matrices of o(n) and defines elements \b{U}\({}_{ij\ell m}\), \b{V}\({}_{ij\ell}\), \(i<j<\ell <m\), in \({\mathcal U}(n)\). His main result is: Ker \(\lambda\) \(={\mathcal I}(n)\), \(n\geq 3\), \(\lambda\) injective for \(n=1,2\), where \({\mathcal I}(n)\subset {\mathcal U}(n)\) is the two-sided ideal generated by the elements \b{U}\({}_{ij\ell m}\), \b{V}\({}_{ij\ell}\). A further theorem concerns the mapping \(\Lambda\) from \({\mathcal U}(n)\) to \(E_{n,p}:\) Let \(n\geq 3\) and \(1\leq p<n-1\). Then the p-plane Radon transform \({\mathcal R}_ p\) is a linear bijection from the space \({\mathcal S}({\mathbb{E}}^ n)\) of rapidly decreasing functions onto the set of all functions \(\phi\in {\mathcal S}(E_{n,p})\) satisfying (*) \(\Lambda\) (\b{V}\({}_{ij\ell})\phi =0\) for all \(1\leq i<j<\ell \leq n\). The proof establishes the equivalence of (*) to a finite system of second order differential equations written in local coordinates.