Norms of certain functions of a distinguished Laplacian on the ax + b groups The aim of this paper is to find new estimates for the norms of functions of a (minus) distinguished Laplace operator L on the ‘ax+b’ groups. The central part is devoted to spectrally localized wave propagators, that is, functions of the type ψ(L−−√)exp(itL−−√), with ψ∈C0(R). We show that for t→+∞, the convolution kernel kt of this operator satisfies ∥kt∥1≍t,∥kt∥∞≍1, so that the upper estimates of D. Müller and C. Thiele (Studia Math., 2007) are sharp. As a necessary component, we recall the Plancherel density of L and spend certain time presenting and comparing different approaches to its calculation. Using its explicit form, we estimate uniform norms of several functions of the shifted Laplace-Beltrami operator Δ~, closely related to L. The functions include in particular exp(−tΔ~γ), t>0,γ>0, and (Δ~−z)s, with complex z, s. 302 4 2327-2352 2327-2352 Springer Nature