Div-curl type estimates for elliptic systems of complex vector fields (Q2347415)

Let \(\mathcal L=\{L_1,\dots,L_n\}\) be an elliptic system of linearly independent vector fields with smooth complex coefficients on an open set \(\Omega\subset \mathbb R^N\). Define \(\nabla_{\mathcal L} u=(L_1u,\dots,L_nu)\) for \(u\in C^\infty(\Omega)\) and \(\text{div}_{\mathcal L}v=\sum_{j=1}^nL_jv_j\) for \(v=(v_1,\dots, v_n)\in C^\infty(\Omega, \mathbb R^n)\). Let \(h^r\) denote the localizable version of the Hardy space \(H^r\). The main result proved by the authors is that if \(p\) and \(q\) satisfy \[ \frac{N}{N+1}<p<\infty,\quad 1<p\leq \infty, \quad \frac{1}{r}\doteq \frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{q}< 1 + \frac{1}{N}, \] then for every \(x_0\in\Omega\) there exist an open neighborhood \(\mathcal U\subset \Omega\) of \(x_0\) and \(C>0\) such that \[ \|\nabla_{\mathcal L} \phi\cdot v\|_{h^r}\leq C\|\nabla_{\mathcal L} \phi\|_{h^p}\|v\|_{h^q} \] holds for all \(\phi\in C^\infty_c(\mathcal U)\) and \(v \in C_c^\infty(\mathcal U, \mathbb R^N)\). When \(n=N\), \(\Omega=\mathbb R^N\), and \(L_j=\partial_j\) the above inequality extends the following one: there exists \(C>0\) such that \[ \|u\cdot v\|_{H^r}\leq C\|u\|_{H^p}\|v\|_{H^q}, \] for all \(u\in H^p(\mathbb R^N,\mathbb R^N)\) and \(v\in H^q(\mathbb R^N,\mathbb R^N)\) satisfying \(\text{curl } u=0\) and \(\text{div } v=0\), a result proved by \textit{R. Coifman} et al. in [J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 72, No. 3, 247--286 (1993; Zbl 0864.42009)].