arXiv research

Extends potential theory to Carnot groups, estimating Hausdorff dimension.

We study curvature dimension inequalities for the sub-Laplacian on contact Riemannian manifolds. This new curvature dimension condition is then used to obtain: 1) Geometric conditions ensuring the compactness of the underlying manifold (Bonnet-Myers type results); 2) Volume estimates of metric balls; 3) Gradient bounds…

Generalizes Cheeger inequality to Carnot-Carathéodory spaces.

Sub-Riemannian spectral distance defined using eigenfunctions of sub-Laplacian

We give a generalized curvature-dimension inequality connecting the geometry of sub-Riemannian manifolds with the properties of its sub-Laplacian. This inequality is valid on a large class of sub-Riemannian manifolds obtained from Riemannian foliations. We give a geometric interpretation of the invariants involved in t…

Study solves sub-Laplacian equivalence on a specific Heisenberg group.

We study the heat kernel of the sub-Laplacian L on the CR sphere S2n+1. An explicit and geometrically meaningful formula for the heat kernel is obtained. As a by-product we recover in a simple way the Green function of the conformal sub- Laplacian -L + n2 that was obtained by Geller [12], and also get an explicit formu…

Maps commuting with sub-Laplacians on Carnot groups are conformal.

Study of intrinsic sub-Laplacian for hypersurfaces in contact sub-Riemannian manifolds.

We define a CR structure on a distinguished hyperplane in $\mathbb{C}^{n+1}$ and the CR sub-Laplacian on this CR manifold. We also define symmetries of the CR sub-Laplacian in general and for this special case construct all of them using the ambient construction. Then we investigate the algebra structure of the symmetr…

The paper explores the index theory of sub-Laplacians on higher nilpotent Carnot manifolds.

Study spectral properties of sub-Laplacians in Carnot groups.

The paper proves new comparison theorems for sub-Laplacian in foliations with minimal leaves.

These notes are the basis of a course given at the Institut Henri Poincare in September 2014. We survey some recent results related to the geometric analysis of hypoelliptic diffusion operators on totally geodesic Riemannian foliations. We also give new applications to the study of hypocoercive estimates for Kolmogorov…

We consider different sub-Laplacians on a sub-Riemannian manifold $M$. Namely, we compare different natural choices for such operators, and give conditions under which they coincide. One of these operators is a sub-Laplacian we constructed previously in \cite{GordinaLaetsch2014a}. This operator is canonical with respec…

We prove a geometrically meaningful stochastic representation of the derivative of the heat semigroup on sub-Riemannian manifolds with tranverse symmetries. This representation is obtained from the study of Bochner-Weitzenbock type formulas for sub-Laplacians on 1-forms. As a consequence, we prove new hypoelliptic heat…

We prove a general essential self-adjointness criterion for sub-Laplacians on complete sub-Riemannian manifolds, defined with respect to singular measures. As a consequence, we show that the intrinsic sub-Laplacian (i.e. defined w.r.t. Popp's measure) is essentially self-adjoint on the equiregular connected components …

We study eigenvalue problems for intrinsic sub-Laplacians on regular sub-Riemannian manifolds. We prove upper bounds for sub-Laplacian eigenvalues $λ_k$ of conformal sub-Riemannian metrics that are asymptotically sharp as $k\to +\infty$. For Sasakian manifolds with a lower Ricci curvature bound, and more generally, for…

Study local invariants and geometry of sub-Laplacian on H-type foliations.

We study the sub-Laplacian of the $15$-dimensional unit sphere which is obtained by lifting with respect to the Hopf fibration the Laplacian of the octonionic projective space. We obtain in particular explicit formulas for its heat kernel and deduce an expression for the Green function of a related sub-Laplacian. As a …

The main goal of this work is to study the sub-Laplacian of the unit sphere which is obtained by lifting with respect to the Hopf fibration the Laplacian of the quaternionic projective space. We obtain in particular explicit formulas for its heat kernel and deduce an expression for the Green function of the conformal s…

Sharp inequality on Siegel domain involving weighted norms and sub-Laplacian.

In this paper, we first obtain the sub-Laplacian comparison theorem in a complete noncompact pseudohermitian manifold of vanishing torsion (i.e. Sasakian manifold). Secondly, we derive the sub-gradient estimate for positive pseudoharmonic functions in a complete noncompact pseudohermitian manifold which satisfies the C…

The main technical result of the paper is a Bochner type formula for the sub-laplacian on a quaternionic contact manifold. With the help of this formula we establish a version of Lichnerowicz' theorem giving a lower bound of the eigenvalues of the sub-Laplacian under a lower bound on the $Sp(n)Sp(1)$ components of the …

We prove upper bounds for sub-Laplacian eigenvalues independent of a pseudo-Hermitian structure on a CR manifold. These bounds are compatible with the Menikoff-Sjoestrand asymptotic law, and can be viewed as a CR version of Korevaar's bounds for Laplace eigenvalues of conformal metrics.

This paper considers a classical question of approximation of Brownian motion by a random walk in the setting of a sub-Riemannian manifold $M$. To construct such a random walk we first address several issues related to the degeneracy of such a manifold. In particular, we define a family of sub-Laplacian operators natur…

CR invariant differential operators on densities with leading part a power of the sub-Laplacian are derived. One family of such operators is constructed from the ``conformally invariant powers of the Laplacian'' via the Fefferman metric; the powers which arise for these operators are bounded in terms of the dimension. …

We prove that the first positive eigenvalue, normalized by the volume, of the sub-Laplacian associated with a strictly pseudoconvex pseudo-Hermitian structure $\θ$ on the CR sphere S 2n+1 $\subset$ C n+1 , achieves its maximum when $\θ$ is the standard contact form.

We study a "div-grad type" sub-Laplacian with respect to a smooth measure and its associated heat semigroup on a compact equiregular sub-Riemannian manifold. We prove a short time asymptotic expansion of the heat trace up to any order. Our main result holds true for any smooth measure on the manifold, but it has a spec…

Formula calculates manifold Euler characteristic from curvature.

In this paper we show that, for a sub-Laplacian $Δ$ on a $3$-dimensional manifold $M$, no point interaction centered at a point $q_0\in M$ exists. When $M$ is complete w.r.t. the associated sub-Riemannian structure, this means that $Δ$ acting on $C^\infty_0(M\setminus\{q_0\})$ is essentially self-adjoint. A particular …

Sub-Riemannian Selberg trace formulae for compact quotients of SL(2, R)

We establish inequalities for the eigenvalues of the sub-Laplace operator associated with a pseudo-Hermitian structure on a strictly pseudoconvex CR manifold. Our inequalities extend those obtained by Niu and Zhang \cite{NiuZhang} for the Dirichlet eigenvalues of the sub-Laplacian on a bounded domain in the Heisenberg …

Study subelliptic heat kernel on octonionic anti-de Sitter space.

We prove a CR version of the Obata's result for the first eigenvalue of the sub-Laplacian in the setting of a compact strictly pseudoconvex pseudohermitian three dimensional manifold with non-negative CR-Panietz operator which satisfies a Lichnerowicz type condition. We show that if the first positive eigenvalue of the…

Carnot groups can be polarized if they have specific coordinate systems.

Contact Riemannian manifolds, with not necessarily integrable complex structures, are the generalization of pseudohermitian manifolds in CR geometry. The Tanaka-Webster-Tanno connection on such a manifold plays the role of Tanaka-Webster connection in the pseudohermitian case. We prove the contact Riemannian version of…

Paper generalizes Schwarz lemma for harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds.

A version of Lichnerowicz' theorem giving a lower bound of the eigenvalues of the sub-Laplacian under a lower bound on the Sp(1)Sp(1) component of the qc-Ricci curvature on a compact seven dimensional quaternionic contact manifold is established. It is shown that in the case of a seven dimensional compact 3-Sasakian ma…

The paper establishes maximum principles and stochastic completeness for pseudo-Hermitian manifolds.

We prove a CR Obata type result that if the first positive eigenvalue of the sub-Laplacian on a compact strictly pseudoconvex pseudohermitian manifold with a divergence free pseudohermitian torsion takes the smallest possible value then, up to a homothety of the pseudohermitian structure, the manifold is the standart S…

New eigenvalue bounds for 3-Sasaki metrics improve previous estimates.

We study the subelliptic heat kernel of the sub-Laplacian on a 2n+1-dimensional anti-de Sitter space H2n+1 which also appears as a model space of a CR Sasakian manifold with constant negative sectional curvature. In particular we obtain an explicit and geometrically meaningful formula for the subelliptic heat kernel. T…

We determine the spectrum of the sub-Laplacian on pseudo H-type nilmanifolds and present pairs of isospectral but non-diffeomorphic nilmanifolds with respect to the sub-Laplacian. We observe that these pairs are also isospectral with respect to the Laplacian. More generally, our method allows us to construct an arbitra…

The paper studies asymptotics and zeta functions on compact nilmanifolds.

The paper derives subgradient estimates for a specific nonlinear subparabolic equation on pseudo-Hermitian manifolds.

We study a new class of rank two sub-Riemannian manifolds encompassing Riemannian manifolds, CR manifolds with vanishing Webster-Tanaka torsion, orthonormal bundles over Riemannian manifolds, and graded nilpotent Lie groups of step two. These manifolds admit a canonical horizontal connection and a canonical sub-Laplaci…

We study the radial part of sub-Riemannian Brownian motion in the context of totally geodesic foliations. Itô's formula is proved for the radial processes associated to Riemannian distances approximating the Riemannian one. We deduce very general stochastic completeness criteria for the sub-Riemannian Brownian motion. …