\(L^p\)-estimates for the heat semigroup on differential forms, and related problems (Q2187703)

For a \(M^n\) complete Riemannian manifold and \(\Delta\) the (non-negative) Laplace-Beltrami operator, consider \((e^{-t\Delta})_{t\geq 0}\) the associated heat semigroup acting as a contraction semigroup on \(L^p(M)\) for all \(1\leq p \leq \infty\), and the semigroup is strongly continuous on \(L^p(M)\) for \(1\leq p < \infty\). Now instead of \(\Delta\), one may consider the Hodge-de Rham Laplacian \(\overrightarrow{\Delta}_k=d_k^*d_k+d_{k-1}d_{k-1}^*\) and the associated contraction semigroup \((e^{-t\Delta_k})_{t\geq 0}\) on \(L^2(\Lambda^kT^*M)\). Note that \(\overrightarrow{\Delta}_k\) is non-negative. The article under review studies \(L^p\)-estimates of the semigroup \((e^{-t\Delta_k})_{t\geq 0}\). Apparently the precise estimate of the \(L^p\)-norm \(\|(e^{-t\Delta_k})_{t\geq 0}\|_{p-p}\) is not easy, and the article proves in Theorem 1.2 (i) such an estimate. To be more specific, consider the Bochner's formula \(\overrightarrow{\Delta}_k=\Delta^*\Delta+R_k\) where \(\Delta\) the Levi-Civita connection and \(R_k\) a symmetric section of \(\text{End}(\Lambda^k T^*M)\). Denote by \(R^\pm_k\) the positive and negative part of \(R_k\). The article, under an assumption of a volume-doubling property (Compare Equation (D) in p.3003), the Gaussian upper bound condition (Compare Equation (G) in p.3004), \(R_k^-\) in the enlarged Kato class \(\hat{K}\) (compare Definition 1.1), shows that \(\|(e^{-t\Delta_k})\|_{p-p}\leq C(t\log t)^{\frac{D}{4}(1-\frac{2}{p})}\) for large \(t\) where \(D\) is a homogeneous dimension appearing in the volume doubling property. In addition, using an \(\epsilon\)-subcritical condition for \(R_k^-\) for \(\epsilon\in[0,1)\), the authors prove in Theorem 1.4 better estimates than that of Theorem 1.2. The article also provides in Proposition 1.5 a side result that under an additional assumption of uniform boundedness of \((e^{-t\Delta})_{t\geq 0}\) on \(L^p(\Lambda^1 T^*M)\) for some fixed \(p\), the Riesz transformation \(d\Delta^{-1/2}\) is bounded on \(L^r(M)\) for all \(r\in (1,\text{max}(p,p'))\).