Some properties of the derivatives on Sierpinski gasket type fractals (Q1675136)

Since the fractal Laplacian acts as a differential operator of order greater than one, in analogy with the usual second order Laplacians on manifolds, it is natural to make clear what is the first-order derivative or gradient. Essentially, there are two approaches. One is to regard the Dirichlet form therein as an integral of the inner product of gradients; it seems that this could not provide any direct information for a pointwise gradient. The other approach is to define the pointwise gradient directly; within this second approach, the authors continue to study the properties of Strichartz's derivatives at vertices in fractals. Specifically, they obtain a weak continuity property of the derivatives for functions in the domain of the Laplacian. For a function with zero normal derivative at any fixed vertex, the derivatives, including the normal derivatives, of the neighboring vertices, will decay to zero. The rates of approximations are described, and several nontrivial examples are provided to illustrate that their estimates are optimal. They also study the boundedness property of derivatives for functions in the domain of the Laplacian. A necessary condition for a function having a weak tangent of order one at a vertex is provided. Furthermore, they provide that a conjecture of Strichartz on the existence of higher-order weak tangents may not be true.