A note on the boundedness of Riesz transform for some subelliptic operators

Let $\M$ be a smooth connected non-compact manifold endowed with a smooth measure $\mu$ and a smooth locally subelliptic diffusion operator $L$ satisfying $L1=0$, and which is symmetric with respect to $\mu$. We show that if $L$ satisfies, with a non negative curvature parameter $\rho_1$, the generalized curvature inequality in \eqref{CD} below, then the Riesz transform is bounded in $L^p (\bM)$ for every $p>1$, that is $$\| \sqrt{\Gamma((-L)^{-1/2}f)}\|_p \le C_p \| f \|_p, \quad f \in C^\infty_0(\bM),$$ where $\Gamma$ is the \textit{carr\'e du champ} associated to $L$. Our results apply in particular to all Sasakian manifolds whose horizontal Tanaka-Webster Ricci curvature is nonnegative, all Carnot groups with step two, and wide subclasses of principal bundles over Riemannian manifolds whose Ricci curvature is nonnegative.