The Hardy inequality and the heat equation in twisted tubes (Q708238)

This paper deals with the decay rate for the heat semigroup associated with the Dirichlet Laplacian in the tube. Thus, let \(\Omega_0= \mathbb{R}\times\omega\), where \(\omega\subset\mathbb{R}^2\) is non-circular cross-section, be a straight three-dimensional tube. Instead of simply translating \(\omega\) along \(\mathbb{R}\), the cross-section \(\omega\) is also allowed to rotate with respect to a non-constant angle \(\theta(x_1)\) such that \(\dot\theta\) is compactly supported. The above-mentioned deformation defines the twisted tube \(\Omega_\theta\). The Dirichlet Laplacian \(-\Delta^{\Omega_\Theta}_D\) is defined in a standard way and \(E_1\) is the first eigenvalue of the Dirichlet Laplacian \(-\Delta^\omega_D\) in \(\omega\). The authors consider the diffusion equation in \(\Omega_\theta\) equipped with the Dirichlet conditions on \(\partial\Omega_\theta\) and \(u_0(x)\) is the initial datum; \(u(t,x)\) stands for the corresponding solution. The shifted semigroup \(S(t)= e^{(\Delta^{\Omega_\theta}_D+ E_1)t}\) is an operator acting from a subspace of \(L^2(\Omega_\theta)\) into \(L^2(\Omega_\theta)\). Then the asymptotic properties of \(S(t)\) are studied and the corresponding decay rate \(\Gamma(\Omega_\theta)\) is found. \(\Gamma(\Omega_\theta)={1\over 4}\) if \(\Omega_\theta\) is an untwisted tube and \(\Gamma(\Omega_\theta)\geq {3\over 4}\) if \(\Omega_\theta\) is twisted. This is the main result of the paper. For each \(\Gamma<\Gamma(\Omega_\theta)\) one can find such a constant \(C_\Gamma> 0\) that \[ \| u(t)\|_{L^2(\Omega_\theta)}\leq C_\Gamma(1+ t)^{-\Gamma} e^{-E_1t}\| u_0\|_{L^2(\Omega_\theta, K)} \] for every \(t\geq 0\) and any \(u_0\in L^2(\Omega_\theta, K)\). The subspace \(L^2(\Omega_\theta, K)\) of \(L^2(\Omega_\theta)\) has the weight \(K(x)= e^{{x^2_1\over y}}\). The power \({1\over 4}\) is optimal for untwisted tubes. Moreover, the authors propose a simpler proof of the following Hardy inequality: \(-\Delta^{\Omega_\theta}_D- E_1\geq \rho\), where the function \(\rho> 0\) in twisted tubes and \(\rho= 0\) in the untwisted tubes.