Semiclassical resolvent estimates for Hölder potentials (Q2020186)

The author considers resolvent estimates for the Schrödinger operator \[P(h) = - h^2 \Delta + V(x) \tag{1}\] acting on \(L^2(\mathbb{R}^d)\) with \(d \geq 3\). Here \(0 < h \leq 1\) is a semiclassical parameter and the potential \(V\) is assumed to obey \(V(x) \leq p(|x|)\) for some strictly positive and decreasing function \(p\) with \(\lim_{r \to \infty} p(r) = 0\). His first main result is the bound \[ \log \Vert (1+|x|)^{-s} (P(h) - E \pm i \epsilon)^{-1} (1+|x|)^{-s} \Vert_{L^2 \to L^2} \lesssim_{s,E,p} h^{-1} \,, \tag{2}\] which holds uniformly in \(\epsilon > 0\) for \(s>1/2\) under the additional assumption that \(\partial_{|x|} V(x) \lesssim (|x|+1)^{-\beta}\) with \(\beta > 1\). His second main result is a bound of the form \[ \log \Vert (1+|x|)^{-s} (P(h) - E \pm i \epsilon)^{-1} (1+|x|)^{-s} \Vert_{L^2 \to L^2} \lesssim_{s,E,p} h^{-\frac{4}{\alpha + 3}} \log(h^{-1}) + 1 \,, \tag{4}\] which holds for Hölder potentials with index \(0 < \alpha < 1\) that satisfy an additional decay assumption. These results are later extended to exterior domains in \(d \geq 2\). As application of his estimates, the author discusses the decay of the local energy of solutions of the wave equation with a refraction index, which may be Hölder, Lipschitz or \(L^{\infty}\). The proofs of these statements are based on global Carleman estimates proved by the author in [Asymptotic Anal. 118, No. 4, 297--312 (2020; Zbl 1452.35196)]. A bound of the form (2) was proved by \textit{K. Datchev} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 24, No. 3, 740--747 (2014; Zbl 1303.35005)] for a slightly smaller class of potentials. The first to prove such a bound was \textit{N. Burq} [Am. J. Math. 124, No. 4, 677--735 (2002; Zbl 1013.35019)] who considered smooth potentials. Shapiro proved the bound in the case \(d=2\) for Lipschitz potentials under a slightly stronger decay assumption, see [\textit{J. Shapiro}, Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 147, No. 5, 1999--2008 (2019; Zbl 1464.35075)]. The weaker bound, where the right side is replaced by \(h^{-4/3} \log(h^{-1})\), has been proved for compactly supported \(L^{\infty}\) potentials by \textit{F. Klopp} and \textit{M. Vogel} [Pure Appl. Anal. 1, No. 1, 1--25 (2019; Zbl 1421.35065)], and by \textit{J. Shapiro} [J. Spectr. Theory 10, No. 2, 651--672 (2020; Zbl 1445.35274)] for \(d \geq 2\). The author has extended this result in [Pure Appl. Anal. 1, No. 2, 207--214 (2019; Zbl 1471.35068)] to potentials with a certain decay provided \(d \geq 3\). The bound (4) has been recently proved in [\textit{J. Galkowski} and \textit{J. Shapiro}, ``Semiclassical resolvent bounds for weakly decaying potentials'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2003.02525}] with similar techniques for a larger class of Hölder continuous potentials. In [the author, Lett. Math. Phys. 111, No. 1, Paper No. 3, 21 p. (2021; Zbl 1458.35292)] is has been proved that in case of radial potentials the bound in (4) holds without the logarithmic factor.