01520nas a2200133   4500008004300000245008600043210006900129520106500198100002501263700001701288700002401305700002101329856003601350       2009                        en_Ud  00aThe intrinsic hypoelliptic Laplacian and its heat kernel on unimodular Lie groups0 aintrinsic hypoelliptic Laplacian and its heat kernel on unimodul3 aWe present an invariant definition of the hypoelliptic Laplacian on sub-Riemannian structures with constant growth vector, using the Popp\\\'s volume form introduced by Montgomery. This definition generalizes the one of the Laplace-Beltrami operator in Riemannian geometry. In the case of left-invariant problems on unimodular Lie groups we prove that it coincides with the usual sum of squares.\\nWe then extend a method (first used by Hulanicki on the Heisenberg group) to compute explicitly the kernel of the hypoelliptic heat equation on any unimodular Lie group of type I. The main tool is the noncommutative Fourier transform. We then study some relevant cases: SU(2), SO(3), SL(2) (with the metrics inherited by the Killing form), and the group SE(2) of rototranslations of the plane.\\nOur study is motivated by some recent results about the cut and conjugate loci on these sub-Riemannian manifolds. The perspective is to understand how singularities of the sub-Riemannian distance reflect on the kernel of the corresponding hypoelliptic heat equation.1 aAgrachev, Andrei, A.1 aBoscain, Ugo1 aGauthier, Jean-Paul1 aRossi, Francesco  uhttp://hdl.handle.net/1963/266900870nas a2200109   4500008004300000245007800043210006900121520049600190100001700686700002100703856003600724       2008                        en_Ud  00aInvariant Carnot-Caratheodory metrics on S3, SO(3), SL(2) and Lens Spaces0 aInvariant CarnotCaratheodory metrics on S3 SO3 SL2 and Lens Spac3 aIn this paper we study the invariant Carnot-Caratheodory metrics on SU(2) \\\' S3,\\nSO(3) and SL(2) induced by their Cartan decomposition. Beside computing explicitly geodesics and conjugate loci, we compute the cut loci (globally) and we give the expression of the Carnot-Caratheodory distance as the inverse of an elementary function. We then prove that the metric\\ngiven on SU(2) projects on the so called Lens Spaces L(p; q). Also for Lens Spaces, we compute\\nthe cut loci (globally).1 aBoscain, Ugo1 aRossi, Francesco  uhttp://hdl.handle.net/1963/2144