Positive solutions and large time behaviors of Schrödinger semigroups, Simon's problem (Q801206)

The large time behavior of semigroups corresponding to Schrödinger operators is investigated. In particular a criterion is given for V to be subcritical (critical) which means that the \(L^{\infty}\)-norm of the logarithm of the semigroup of \(-\Delta +V\) and \(-\Delta +(1+\epsilon)V\) increases slower than t (respectively the L-norm of the semigroup of \(- \Delta +V\) increases slower than t and that of \(-\Delta +(1+\epsilon)V\) increases at least as fast as t). On one hand it is shown that these properties are equivalent to the existence of zero energy solutions of the Schrödinger equation with certain properties [this solves a problem of \textit{B. Simon} in ibid. 40, 66-83 (1981; Zbl 0478.47024)], and on the other hand to certain asymptotic behavior of \(\exp (-tH)(x,y)\) for large t.