Description

The potential theory is a broad area of study of properties of functions that satisfy the Laplace equation. The major topics covered under potential theory are harmonic and subharmonic functions, Green's function, Dirichlet boundary value problem, capacity, polar sets, thin sets, and generalized Dirichlet problem. On stratified Lie groups, we have an analog of the Euclidean Laplacian which happens to be a hypoelliptictic operator and therefore it is interesting to study potential theory on stratified Lie groups. In this thesis, we have studied some problems involving the sub-Laplacian and their powers on certain two-step nilpotent stratified Lie groups. The thesis is divided into five chapters followed by a bibliography, list of notations, and index. The first chapter is an introduction. In this chapter, we have introduced some basic notions of the theory of partial differential equations, distributions, the potential theory of stratified Lie groups, and the Heisenberg group. We have stated the results required in the thesis without proof and proper references are given for details of the topics and theorems discussed.