Hypoelliptic heat kernel inequalities on Lie groups

This paper discusses the existence of gradient estimates for the heat kernel of a second order hypoelliptic operator on a manifold. For elliptic operators, it is now standard that such estimates (satisfying certain conditions on coefficients) are equivalent to a lower bound on the Ricci tensor of the Riemannian metric. For hypoelliptic operators, the associated "Ricci curvature" takes on the value -[infinity] at points of degeneracy of the semi-Riemannian metric. For this reason, the standard proofs for the elliptic theory fail in the hypoelliptic setting. This paper presents recent results for hypoelliptic operators. Malliavin calculus methods transfer the problem to one of determining certain infinite dimensional estimates. Here, the underlying manifold is a Lie group, and the hypoelliptic operators are given by the sum of squares of left invariant vector fields. In particular, "Lp-type" gradient estimates hold for p[set membership, variant](1,[infinity]), and the p=2 gradient estimate implies a Poincaré estimate in this context.