Heat kernels of the discrete Laguerre operators.

For the discrete Laguerre operators we compute explicitly the corresponding heat kernels by expressing them with the help of Jacobi polynomials. This enables us to show that the heat semigroup is ultracontractive and to compute the corresponding norms. On the one hand, this helps us to answer basic questions (recurrence, stochastic completeness) regarding the associated Markovian semigroup. On the other hand, we prove the analogs of the Cwiekel-Lieb-Rosenblum and the Bargmann estimates for perturbations of the Laguerre operators, as well as the optimal Hardy inequality.