CR Sub-Laplacian Comparison and Liouville-type Theorem in a Complete Noncompact Sasakian Manifold

Abstract: In this paper, we first obtain the sub-Laplacian comparison theorem in a complete noncompact pseudohermitian manifold of vanishing torsion (i.e. Sasakian manifold). Secondly, we derive the sub-gradient estimate for positive pseudoharmonic functions in a complete noncompact pseudohermitian manifold which satisfies the CR sub-Laplacian comparison property. It is served as the CR analog of Yau's gradient estimate. As a consequence, we have the natural CR analogue of Liouville-type theorems in a complete noncompact Sasakian manifold of nonnegative pseudohermitian Ricci curvature tensors.