Harnack inequality for non-self-adjoint evolution equations (Q1902231)

Many years ago, S. Y. Cheng, P. Li and myself gave an estimate of the heat kernel for the Laplacian. This was later improved by \textit{P. Li} and myself in [Acta Math. 156, 154-201 (1986; Zbl 0611.58045)]. The key point of this later paper was a parabolic Harnack inequality that generalized an elliptic Harnack inequality that I developed more than twenty years ago. Since many evolution equations in applied mathematics are not self-adjoint and have a convection term, I propose here to generalize the parabolic Harnack inequality that Li and I developed to cover the non-self-adjoint case. The Harnack inequality is considerably stronger than the estimates of the heat kernel. I hope that it will be useful for questions in control theory and fluid dynamics. The applications will be studied on a later occasion.