Relative heat content asymptotics for sub-Riemannian manifolds

Abstract: The relative heat content associated with a subset $\Omega\subset M$ of a sub-Riemannian manifold, is defined as the total amount of heat contained in $\Omega$ at time $t$, with uniform initial condition on $\Omega$, allowing the heat to flow outside the domain. In this work, we obtain a fourth-order asymptotic expansion in square root of $t$ of the relative heat content associated with relatively compact non-characteristic domains. Compared to the classical heat content that we studied in [Rizzi, Rossi - J. Math. Pur. Appl., 2021], several difficulties emerge due to the absence of Dirichlet conditions at the boundary of the domain. To overcome this lack of information, we combine a rough asymptotic for the temperature function at the boundary, coupled with stochastic completeness of the heat semi-group. Our technique applies to any (possibly rank-varying) sub-Riemannian manifold that is globally doubling and satisfies a global weak Poincar\'e inequality, including in particular sub-Riemannian structures on compact manifolds and Carnot groups.