Local limit theorems for random walks on nilpotent Lie groups

We establish the (non-lattice) local limit theorem for products of i.i.d. random variables on an arbitrary simply connected nilpotent Lie group G, where the variables are allowed to be non-centered. Our result also improves on the known centered case by proving uniformity for two-sided moderate deviations and allowing measures with a moment of order $$2(\dim G)^2$$ without further regularity assumptions. As applications we establish a Ratner-type equidistribution theorem for unipotent walks on homogeneous spaces and obtain a new proof of the Choquet-Deny property in our setting.