Variable Hardy spaces on non-tangentially accessible domains and their applications to div-curl lemma (Q2082318)

Non-tangentially accessible (NTA) domains were introduced in [\textit{D. S. Jerison} and \textit{C. E. Kenig}, Adv. Math. 46, 80--147 (1982; Zbl 0514.31003)] in the context of the analysis of the boundary behaviour of harmonic functions. They also provide a natural setting for the analysis of solutions to elliptic PDEs with weak boundary regularity constraints. In this paper, the authors provide the molecular characterization of the variable Hardy spaces on a bounded NTA domain \(\Omega\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(n\ge 2\), associated with a suitable second order divergence form elliptic operator \(L_D\). In the case where the latter is non-negative and self-adjoint, the atomic and the maximal function characterization of the variable Hardy spaces are obtained as well. The authors also introduce the ``geometrical'' variable Hardy spaces, also in the local version, by means of restrictions of elements of the variable Hardy spaces on \(\mathbb{R}^n\) to \(\Omega\). Several characterizations of these function spaces are derived, along with a thorough analysis of their properties. As far as applications are concerned, the paper deals with the boundedness of the Riesz transform \(\nabla L_D^{-1/2}\) and the fractional integral operators \(L_D^{-\beta}\) on appropriate variable Lebesgue and Hardy spaces on NTA domains. As a corollary, the authors obtain global gradient estimates of the inhomogeneous Dirichlet problem for \(L_D\) on \(\Omega\), as well as a div-curl lemma on the variable Hardy space on \(\Omega\).