Subelliptic Li-Yau estimates on three dimensional model spaces

Dominique Bakry (1) , Fabrice Baudoin (1) , Michel Bonnefont (1) , Bin Qian (1)

1 IMT - Institut de Mathématiques de Toulouse UMR5219

We describe three elementary models in three dimensional subelliptic geometry which corresponds to the three models of the Riemannian geometry (spheres, Euclidean spaces and Hyperbolic spaces) which are respectively the SU(2), Heisenberg and SL(2) groups. On those models, we prove parabolic Li-Yau inequalities on positive solutions of the heat equation. We use for that the Γ2 techniques that we adapt to those elementary model spaces. The important feature developped here is that although the usual notion of Ricci curvature is meaningless (or more precisely leads to bounds of the form -∞ for the Ricci curvature), we describe a parameter ρ which plays the same rôle than the lower bound on the Ricci curvature, and from which one deduces the same kind of results as one does in Riemannian geometry, like heat kernel upper bounds, Sobolev inequalities and diameter estimates.

Domaines: Analyse fonctionnelle [math.FA]; Géométrie différentielle [math.DG]; Probabilités [math.PR]; Equations aux dérivées partielles [math.AP]

Dominique Bakry, Fabrice Baudoin, Michel Bonnefont, Bin Qian. Subelliptic Li-Yau estimates on three dimensional model spaces. 2008. ⟨hal-00353714⟩