As the heat kernel plays an important role in many problems in harmonic analysis, an explicit usable expression is very much desirable. An explicit expression for the heat kernel for the Heisenberg group Hn = C ×R was obtained by Hulanicki [9] and by Gaveau [7]. Gaveau [7] also obtained the heat kernel for free nilpotent Lie groups of step two. Cygan [4] obtained the heat kernel for all nilpote...

Let G be a classical group and let g be its Lie algebra. For a nilpotent element X E g, the ring R(Ox) of regular functions on the nilpotent orbit Ox is a Gmodule. In this thesis, we will decompose it into irreducible representations of G for some spherical nilpotent orbits. Thesis Supervisor: David Alexander Vogan Title: Professor of Mathematics