On a Laplacian which acts on symmetric tensors

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In the present paper we show properties of a little-known Laplacian operator acting on symmetric tensors. This operator is an analogue of the well known Hodge-de Rham Laplacian which acts on exterior differential forms. Moreover, this operator admits the Weitzenböck decomposition and we study it using the analytical method, due to Bochner, of proving vanishing theorems for the null space of a Laplace operator admitting a Weitzenböck decomposition and further of estimating its lowest eigenvalue.