Besov class via heat semigroup on Dirichlet spaces. I: Sobolev type inequalities (Q2304464): Difference between revisions

In [J. Funct. Anal. 63, 240--260 (1985; Zbl 0608.47047)], \textit{N. Th. Varopoulos} generalized Sobolev's inequality \[ \|f\|_{L^q(\mathbb{R}^n)}\leqslant C \cdot\||\nabla f|\|_{L^p(\mathbb{R}^n)} \] where \(f\in C_0^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}^n)\), \(1<p<n\), and \(q=\frac{np}{n-p}\), in the following way. Given a measure space \((X,\mu)\) equipped with a symmetric Dirichlet form \(\mathcal{E}\) with domain \(\mathcal{F}\) such that a heat kernel upper bound \(p_t(x,y)\leqslant C\cdot t^{-n/2}\) is valid for some \(n>2\), he established that \[ \|f\|_{L^q(X,\mu)}\leqslant C_{n,p}\cdot \sqrt{\mathcal{E}(f,f)} \] holds, where \(f\in\mathcal{F}\), \(q=\frac{2n}{n-2}\), and the constant depends on \(n\) and \(p\). In the special case of the Euclidean space and the standard Dirichlet form \(\mathcal{E}(f,f)=\||\nabla f|\|_{L^2(\mathbb{R}^n)}^2\), the above recovers the \(p=2\) case of the classical Sobolev inequality. In other words, Varopoulos' result extends Sobolev's inequality from the Euclidean space to general Dirichlet spaces, but only in the case \(p=2\). The core of the present paper is the extension of Sobolev's inequality to general Dirichlet spaces also in the case \(p\not=2\). Here, the authors prove that, for a Dirichlet space \((X,\mu,\mathcal{E},\mathcal{F})\), \[ \forall\:1\leqslant p\leqslant\beta/\alpha\;\exists\:C_{p,\alpha,\beta}>0\;\forall\:f\in L^p(X,\mu): \|f\|_{L^q(X,\mu)}\leqslant C_{p,\alpha,\beta}\cdot\|f\|_{p,\alpha} \] holds with \(q=\frac{p\beta}{\beta-p\alpha}\), provided that a heat kernel estimate \(p_t(x,y)\leqslant C\cdot t^{-\beta}\) is satisfied with some \(\beta>0\) and that, for some \(\alpha>0\), the Besov space norm \[ \|f\|_{p,\alpha}:=\sup_{t>0}t^{-\alpha}\bigg(\int_X\int_X|f(x)-f(y)|^pp_t(x,y)\,\mathrm{d}\mu(x)\,\mathrm{d}\mu(y)\bigg)^{1/p} \] can be estimated by a constant, independent of \(f\), times the limes inferior (instead of the supremum) over the same expression above. The authors show that, for \(p=2\), the latter assumption is always satisfied with \(\alpha=1/2\) and that \(\mathcal{E}(f,f)\simeq\|f\|^2_{2,1/2}\) holds. Putting \(\beta=n/2\) thus recovers Varoupolous's result. On the other hand, the authors show that on the Euclidean space, furnished with the standard Dirichlet form, the limes inferior assumption holds true with \(\alpha=1/2\) for any \(p>1\) and that, in this case, \(\|f\|_{p,1/2}\simeq \||\nabla f|\|_{L^p(\mathbb{R}^n)}\) is valid. Therefore, also the Sobolev inequalities appear as a special case of the new result. In order to prove the aforementioned main theorem, the authors develop a theory of Besov classes for the heat semigroup on general Dirichlet spaces and for arbitrary \(p\). In the last two chapters, they focus on the special case \(p=1\) where their results lead to isoperimetric type inequalities.