Weakly singular integral equations with operator-valued kernels and an application to radiation transfer problems (Q1892632)

Let \({\mathcal L}(E)\) be the algebra of bounded operators in a Banach space \(E\) and \(G\in R^n\) be an open bounded domain. The authors study the smoothness properties of the solution of the following integral equation \[ u(x)=\int_G K(x,y) u(y)dy+f(x),\qquad x\in G \] where \(f:G\to\mathbb{R}\) and \(K:G\times G\to {\mathcal L} (E)\) are known and \(u:G\to E\) is an unknown function with values in the Banach space \(E\). The kernel \(K(x,y)\) is weakly singular and the conditions on it are formulated in terms of the Gateaux derivatives (i.e. derivatives with respect to the strong operator convergence topology). The main purpose is a description of the smoothness of the solution by proving that it belongs to some special weighted spaces of smooth functions. As a byproduct of the proof the compactness of the integral operator or its square in \(L_p (G,E)\), \(BC (G,E)\) and some other spaces of interest in numerical analysis and also in some weighted spaces of smooth functions, is established. Special attention is given to the radiation transfer problem in the bounded domain \(G\), which can be equivalently reformulated as a weakly singular integral equation, similar to (1) with \(E=C(S^{n-1})\). The results, obtained for a general equation, are specified for this case.