A Paneitz-type operator for CR pluriharmonic functions

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Jeffrey Case, Princeton University
Fine Hall 314

Paul Yang and I recently found a new fourth order CR-invariant operator on CR pluriharmonic functions in three dimensions which generalizes to the abstract setting the operator on the sphere discovered by Branson, Fontana, and Morpurgo.  I will describe the similarities between this operator and the (conformal) Paneitz operator, and how this helps to better understand some problems in CR geometry.