INTERTWINING-OPERATORS FOR SOLVING DIFFERENTIAL-EQUATIONS, WITH APPLICATIONS TO SYMMETRIC-SPACES

The use of intertwining operators to solve both ordinary and partial differential equations is developed. Classes of intertwining operators are constructed which transform between Laplacians which are self-adjoint with respect to different non-trivial measures. In the two-dimensional case, the intertwining operator transforms a non-separable partial differential operator to a separable one. As an application, the heat kernels on the rank 1 and rank 2 symmetric spaces are constructed. © 1990 Springer-Verlag.