Higher Laplacians on pseudo-Hermitian symmetric spaces

Abstract: Let $X=G/H$ be a symmetric space for a real simple Lie group $G$, equipped with a $G$-invariant complex structure. Then, $X$ is a pseudo-Hermitian manifold, and in this geometric setting, higher Laplacians $L_m$ are defined for each positive integer $m$, which generalize the ordinary Laplace-Beltrami operator. We show that $L_1,L_3,\ldots, L_{2r-1}$ form a set of algebraically independent generators for the algebra $\mathbb{D}_G(X)$ of $G$-invariant differential operators on $X$, where $r$ denotes the rank of $X$. This confirms a conjecture of Engli\v{s} and Peetre, originally stated for the class of Hermitian symmetric spaces.