UMD Banach spaces and the maximal regularity for the square root of several operators (Q2447221)

Banach space-valued harmonic analysis is the study of problems of the following form: given a singular integral operator \(T\in B(L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{n}))\), under which conditions on a Banach space \(X\) does \(T\otimes I_{X}\) extend to a bounded operator on \(L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{n};X)\)? Paraphrasing Tuomas Hytönen, one can say that such questions are motivated by applications (treating PDE problems as ODE in Banach spaces), Banach space theory (understanding the relationship between the geometry of \(X\) and properties of the operators acting on \(L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{n};X)\)), and by the desire to gain a deeper understanding of the operator \(T\) in the classical, scalar-valued, setting. The quintessential result in this field, proved by Burkholder and Bourgain in the 1980s, states that \(X\) is a UMD space (i.e., every \(X\)-valued martingale has unconditional differences) if and only if the Hilbert transform is bounded on \(L^{2}(\mathbb{R}^{n};X)\). A variation of this result, proven by \textit{T. Coulhon} and \textit{D. Lamberton} in [Publ. Math. Univ. Paris VII 26, 155--165 (1985; Zbl 0641.47046)], states that \(X\) is UMD if and only if the maximal regularity operator defined by \[ \mathcal{M}_{\sqrt{-\Delta}}f(t) = \int \limits _{0} ^{t} \sqrt{-\Delta}e^{(t-s)\sqrt{-\Delta}} f(s)\, ds\;\text{ for all } t \in (0,1), \] extends to a bounded operator on \(L^{2}((0,1);X))\). The paper under review extends this result to operators \(\mathcal{M}_{\sqrt{-L}}\), where \(L\) is the analogue of the Laplacian in a Bessel, Hermite, or Laguerre context, acting on \(L^{p}(\Omega, w(x)dx)\) for some \(p \in (1,\infty)\), \(\Omega\) equal to \(\mathbb{R}\) or \((0,\infty)\) and \(w\) an appropriate weight (e.g., \(\Omega=\mathbb{R}\), \(w=1\), \(Lf(x) = \frac{1}{2}(\Delta f(x) -x^{2}f(x)) \text{ for all } x \in \mathbb{R}\)). The fact that such operators are bounded on \(L^{2}((0,1);L^{p}(\Omega;X))\) for \(X\) UMD can actually be seen as a special case of Lutz Weis' general theory (see [\textit{P. C. Kunstmann} and \textit{L. Weis}, Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1855, 65--311 (2004; Zbl 1097.47041)] and the references therein). The novelty here is thus mostly in the fact that this boundedness characterises UMD spaces. The proof, in all the cases, is based on global/local part decompositions of the corresponding kernels (the local part corresponding to a restriction of the kernel \(k(x,y)\) near the diagonal \(x=y\)). The global parts give rise to operators that are \(L^{2}((0,1);L^{p}(\Omega;Y))\) for all Banach spaces \(Y\). This follows from fairly rough estimates involving a scalar-valued operator acting on the \(Y\)-norm of \(Y\)-valued functions. Similar arguments, using known but precise and subtle kernel estimates, show that the local parts differ from their standard counterparts by kernels that also give rise to operators which are \(L^{2}((0,1);L^{p}(\Omega;Y))\) for all Banach spaces \(Y\). Therefore, all these operators \(\mathcal{M}_{\sqrt{-L}}\) are \(L^{2}((0,1);L^{p}(\Omega;X))\) bounded if and only if the local part of \(\mathcal{M}_{\sqrt{-\Delta}}\) is. The latter holds if and only if \(\mathcal{M}_{\sqrt{-\Delta}}\) is \(L^{2}((0,1);L^{p}(\Omega;X))\) bounded, which is equivalent to \(X\) being UMD by Coulhon-Lamberton's result. The paper under review thus reinforces two important ideas: that the UMD property plays an absolutely central role in Banach space-valued harmonic analysis, and that appropriate decompositions into local and global parts allow one to transfer results between the standard setting (Euclidean Laplacian and Lebesgue measure) and its Bessel, Hermite, and Laguerre counterparts.