Hypoellipticity, fundamental solution and Liouville type theorem for matrix-valued differential operators in Carnot groups (Q843184)

Let \({\mathbb G}\) be a Carnot group of homogeneous dimension \(Q\), and \(L\) be an \(N\times N\) formally self-adjoint (i.e., symmetric on smooth functions) system of homogeneous left-invariant differential operators on \({\mathbb G}\) of order \(2r\), \(r\in{\mathbb N}\), with \(2r\leq Q\). In this interesting paper, the authors study in the first place the fundamental solution of \(L\), and then, when \(L=L^*\) is supposed a priori to be nonnegative, the equivalence of hypoellipticity, \(L^p\)-maximal hypoellipticity [see \textit{B. Helffer} and \textit{J. Nourrigat}, Hypoellipticité maximale pour des opérateurs polynômes de champs de vecteurs. Progress in Mathematics, Vol. 58. Boston-Basel-Stuttgart: Birkhäuser (1985; Zbl 0568.35003)] for \(1<p<\infty\), and the ``maximal subellipticity'' (i.e., maximal estimates in \(L^2\) for the associated \(L^2\)-quadratic form on \({\mathbb G}\)). More precisely, calling \(X_1,\dots,X_m\) the generating vector fields of the group and denoting by \(X^I=X_1^{i_1}X_2^{i_2}\dots X_m^{i_m}\) when \(I=(i_1,\dots,i_m)\), their main result is that, under the above hypotheses, the following statements are equivalent: (i) \(L\) is hypoelliptic; (ii) \(L\) is \(L^p\)-maximally hypoelliptic, that is, for any fixed \(p\in(1,\infty)\), for any given bounded open \(\Omega\subset{\mathbb G}\) there exists \(C=C_{\Omega,p}>0\) such that for any given multi-index \(I\) with \(|I|=2r,\) one has \[ \|X^Iu\|_{L^p({\mathbb G})}\leq C\Bigl(\|Lu\|_{L^p({\mathbb G})}+\|u\|_{L^p({\mathbb G})}\Bigr), \,\,\,\,\forall u\in C_0^\infty(\Omega;{\mathbb R}^N); \] (iii) \(L\) is ``maximally subelliptic'', that is, for any given bounded open \(\Omega\subset{\mathbb G}\) there exists \(C=C_\Omega>0\) such that for any given multi-index \(I\) with \(|I|=r,\) one has \[ \|X^Iu\|_{L^2({\mathbb G})}^2\leq C\Bigl(\langle Lu,u\rangle_{L^2({\mathbb G})}+\|u\|_{L^2({\mathbb G})}^2\Bigr), \,\,\,\,\forall u\in C_0^\infty(\Omega;{\mathbb R}^N). \] By the Poincaré inequality one can replace \(|I|=2r\) by \(|I|\leq 2r\) in (ii), and \(|I|=r\) by \(|I|\leq r\) in (i). The proof that hypoellipticity implies \(L^p\)-maximal hypoellipticity is based on the existence of the fundamental solution \(K\) of \(L\), and on precise \(L^p\)-estimates for \(K\).