Kernel estimates for Schrödinger type operators with unbounded coefficients and critical exponents (Q310517)

The authors consider the operator \(A=(1+|x|^\alpha )\Delta +c|x|^{\alpha-2}\) in the whole space \(\mathbb{R}^N\), for \(\alpha>2\), \(c<0\) and \(N>2\). \(A\) generates a compact semigroup \(T(t)\) in \(C_b({\mathbb R}^N)\) which admits an integral representation through a heat kernel \(p(t,x,y)\). Let \(c_0=\left(\frac{N-1}{2}\right)^2\), \(\gamma_1=-\sqrt{c_0}-\sqrt{c_0-c}\), and \(\alpha_0=2+2\sqrt{1-\frac{c}{c_0}}\). It is proved that \[ p(t,x,y)\leq \frac{Ce^{kt}}{t^{\frac{2\alpha-4\gamma_1-2N}{2(\alpha-2)}}}\frac{\psi(x)\psi(y)}{1+|x|^\alpha}, \] where \(C,k>0\), \(t\in(0,1]\), \(\alpha\in(2,\alpha_0]\), \(\psi\) is the first eigenfunction of \(A\) and \(\lambda_0 < 0\) is the first eigenvalue. A similar estimate is proved for large times: \[ p(t,x,y)\leq Ce^{\lambda_0 t}\frac{\psi(x)\psi(y)}{1+|y|^\alpha}, \] where \(t\geq 1\), \(\alpha>2\). Moreover, it is proved that all normalized eigenfunctions \(\psi_j\) of \(A\) satisfy \[ |\psi_j(x)|\leq C_j(1+|x|^{\gamma_1}) \] for large values of \(|x|\). Heat kernel estimates are obtained using the equivalence between weighted Nash inequalities and ``weighted'' ultracontractivity of a symmetric Markov semigroup.