$α$-modulation spaces for step two stratified Lie groups

Abstract

We define and investigate $α$-modulation spaces $M_{p,q}^{s,α}(G)$ associated to a step two stratified Lie group $G$ with rational structure constants. This is an extension of the Euclidean $α$-modulation spaces $M_{p,q}^{s,α}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ that act as intermediate spaces between the modulation spaces ($α= 0$) in time-frequency analysis and the Besov spaces ($α= 1$) in harmonic analysis. We will illustrate that the the group structure and dilation structure on $G$ affect the boundary cases $α= 0,1$ where the spaces $M_{p,q}^{s}(G)$ and $\mathcal{B}_{p,q}^{s}(G)$ have non-standard translation and dilation symmetries. Moreover, we show that the spaces $M_{p,q}^{s,α}(G)$ are non-trivial and generally distinct from their Euclidean counterparts. Finally, we examine how the metric geometry of the coverings $\mathcal{Q}(G)$ underlying the $α= 0$ case $M_{p,q}^{s}(G)$ allows for the existence of geometric embeddings \[F:M_{p,q}^{s}(\mathbb{R}^k) \longrightarrow{} M_{p,q}^{s}(G),\] as long as $k$ (that only depends on $G$) is small enough. Our approach naturally gives rise to several open problems that is further elaborated at the end of the paper.