Nodal solutions for the fractional Yamabe problem on Heisenberg groups

Abstract

We prove that the fractional Yamabe equation $\mathcal L_γu=|u|^\frac{4γ}{Q-2γ}u$ on the Heisenberg group $\mathbb H^n$ has $[\frac{n+1}{2}]$ sequences of nodal (sign-changing) weak solutions whose elements have mutually different nodal properties, where $\mathcal L_γ$ denotes the CR fractional sub-Laplacian operator on $\mathbb H^n$, $Q=2n+2$ is the homogeneous dimension of $\mathbb H^n$, and $γ\in \bigcup_{k=1}^n[k,\frac{kQ}{Q-1})$. Our argument is variational, based on a Ding-type conformal pulling-back transformation of the original problem into a problem on the CR sphere $S^{2n+1}$ combined with a suitable Hebey-Vaugon-type compactness result and group-theoretical constructions for special subgroups of the unitary group ${\bf U}(n+1).$