Eventual domination for linear evolution equations (Q2664642)

A Banach lattice is a lattice that is at the same time a Banach space with a norm satisfying \(|x| \le |y| \Rightarrow \|x\| \le \|y\|\). The primary examples are \(L^p\) spaces and spaces of continuous functions. If \(\{e^{tA}: t \ge 0\}\) and \(\{e^{tB}: t \ge 0\}\) are \(C_0\) semigroups, then the second dominates the first if \[ |e^{tA}f| \le e^{tB}|f|. \tag{1} \] The semigroup \(\{e^{tA}: t \ge 0\}\) is positive if \[ f \ge 0 \ \Rightarrow \ e^{tA}f \ge 0. \tag{2} \] If this inequality only holds for sufficiently large \(t\), then the semigroup is eventually positive. Likewise, if (1) holds for sufficiently large \(t\), then \(\{e^{tB}: t \ge 0\}\) eventually dominates \(\{e^{tA}: t \ge 0\}\). Finally, if (1) holds for \(t \ge t_0\) independent of \(f\), the semigroup's eventual positivity is uniform; likewise, if (2) holds for \(t \ge t_0\) independent of \(f\), then the eventual domination relation is uniform. As a motivation, the authors introduce two examples. One is the heat equation \[ u_t(t, x) = u_{xx}(t, x) \] in \(L^2(0, 1)\) with two types of boundary condition: \begin{align*} \text{Dirichlet-Neumann condition:}\quad &u(t, 0) = 0, \ u_x(t, 1) = 0\;\; (t \ge 0) \tag{3} \\ \text{Periodic:}\quad &u(t, 0) = u(t, 1), \ u_x(t, 0) = u_x(t, 1)\;\;(t \ge 0) \tag{4} \end{align*} If \(A\) (resp., \(B\)) is the Laplacian with conditions (3) (resp., with conditions (4)), then neither semigroup dominates the other; however, we have \(e^{tB}f \ge e^{tA}f\) for \(f \ge 0\), \(t \ge t_0\). In the other example, \(\Omega\) is an \(m\)-dimensional domain, \(B = \Delta\) is the Dirichlet Laplacian and \(A = 2B\). The results in this paper are on characterization of eventual domination in terms of assumptions involving the spectrum, smoothing properties, and eventual positivity of the operators \(A, B\) involved.