On the cohomological equation for nilflows (Q874768)

Many problems in dynamics reduce to a cohomological equation of the following form: given a smooth vector field \(X\) on a compact connected manifold \(M\), and a function \(f\) on \(M\), describe the functions \(u\) with the property that the Lie derivative \(Xu\) in the direction of \(X\) is \(f\) (that is, determine if \(f\) is a coboundary for the associated flow). Clearly \(u\) is determined along entire orbits of the associated flow by the value at any point on the orbit, and continuous solutions are only determined modulo the space of functions constant along orbits of the flow. The subtle nature of the problem (and the key issue in many of the applications) concerns the regularity of \(u\) in relation to the regularity of \(f\). In this paper the case of nilflows on nilmanifolds is investigated, and it is shown that in this setting there is a countable family of Schwartz distributions with the property that a sufficiently smooth function is a coboundary if and only if it lies in the kernel of all the distributions.