Coercivity estimates for integro-differential operators (Q2189552)

This paper establishes a sufficient, but not necessary condition on generalized kernels \(K(x,y)\) to guarantee coercivity estimates for integro-differential operators of the quadratic form \[ \int\int_{\mathbb R^d\times\mathbb R^d}|u(x)-u(y)|^2\,K(x,y)\,dx\,dy\ge c\|u\|_{\dot{H}^s},\ u\in H^s, \] where \(\|\cdot\|_{\dot{H}^s}\) is the homogeneous fractional Sobolev standard norm. Furthermore, a localized form is also proved with Gagliardo's seminorm. Denoting any ball of \(\mathbb{R}^d\) by \(B\), this condition is that there exists \(\mu\in(0,1)\) and \(\lambda>0\) such that, for all \(B\) and all \( x\in B\), \[ \left|\left\{z\in B: K(x,z)\ge\lambda |x-z|^{-d-2s}\right\}\right|\ge\mu|B|. \] A discussion of other sufficient conditions is given, particularly in the case of the Boltzmann operator. The proof is established via constructing a sequence of kernels \(\{K^j(x,y):j\in\mathbb N_0\}\) in terms of \(K(x,y)\). Under appropriate assumptions, it is shown that, for any \(x\in\mathbb R^d\), \(\mathcal{N}^j(x)\subset\mathcal{N}^{j+1}(x)\) a.e., where \(\mathcal{N}^j(x)\) is the non-degeneracy set \(\mathcal{N}^j(x)=\{y\in\mathbb{R}^d:K^j(x,y)\ge \lambda c^j|x-y|^{-d-2s}\}\), \(c\in(0,1]\), is fixed. Moreover, there exists \(n_0>0\) such that, for all \(n\ge n_0\), \(\mathcal{N}^j(x)=\mathbb R^d\) a.e. This leads directly to the proof of the global estimate. Unlike the case of the Boltzmann operator, the proof of the local estimate, under the same assumptions, is notably longer.