Local compactness and nonvanishing for weakly singular nonlocal quadratic forms (Q1985847)

The authors analyse nonlocal quadratic forms of the form \[ {\mathcal E}_j(u,v)=\frac{1}{2}\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^N}\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^N}(u(x)-u(y))(v(x)-v(y)) j(x-y)\,dx\,dy, \] where \(j:{\mathbb{R}}^N\to[0,\infty]\) is a measurable even function with \(\min\{1,|\cdot|^2\}j\in L^1({\mathbb{R}}^N)\) (and without any restriction on the order). It is obtained the local compactness of the embedding \[{\mathcal D}^j({\mathbb{R}}^N)\hookrightarrow L^2({\mathbb{R}}^N),\] where \({\mathcal D}^j({\mathbb{R}}^N)\) denotes the space of functions \(u\in L^2({\mathbb{R}}^N)\) with \({\mathcal E}_j(u,u)<\infty\), and just considering \(j\notin L^1({\mathbb{R}}^N)\). The existence of maximizers for a class of integral functionals defined on the unit sphere in \({\mathcal D}^j({\mathbb{R}}^N)\) is also obtained (and this is also straightforwardly extended to cylindrical unbounded sets of the type \(\Omega = U \times {\mathbb{R}}^k\), where \(U \subset {\mathbb{R}}^{N-k}\) is open and bounded). Moreover, for unbounded domains of that type, a Poincaré inequality associated with \({\mathcal E}_j\) is exhibited.