Analysis of the critical CR GJMS operator

The critical CR GJMS operator on a strictly pseudoconvex CR manifold is a non-hypoelliptic CR invariant differential operator. We prove that, under the embeddability assumption, it is essentially self-adjoint and has closed range. Moreover, its spectrum is discrete, and the eigenspace corresponding to each non-zero eigenvalue is a finite-dimensional subspace of the space of smooth functions. As an application, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a contact form with zero CR $Q$-curvature.