A geometric criterion for compactness of invariant subspaces (Q378885)

The authors give a geometric criterion for a normed space \(A\) of functions on \(M\) to be embedded compactly into an \(L^q(M)\) space for a non-compact connected complete Riemannian manifold with a subgroup of isometries. A continuous action of the group \(\Omega\) on a complete Riemannian manifold \(M\) is coercive if for every \(t>0\), the set \[ O_t = \{ x \in M: \text{diam}\, \Omega x \leq t \} \] \noindent is bounded. The action of \(SO(2)\) on \(\mathbb R^3\) is not coercive because the \(O_t\) are unbounded circular cylinders, but the action of \(SO(3)\) on \(\mathbb R^3\) is coercive as the \(O_t\) are balls of radius \(t/2\). If \(\Omega\) is a compact connected subgroup of isometries, and \(A_{\Omega}\) is the subspace of \(\Omega\)-invariant functions in \(A\), then if \(\Omega\) is coercive (and one other technical condition), the embedding of \(A_{\Omega}\) into \(L^q(M)\) is compact, and if \(A\) contains a compactly supported function whose integral is not zero, compactness of the embedding of \(A_{\Omega}\) into \(L^q(M)\) implies that \(\Omega\) is coercive. For the more restrictive setting of a simply connected complete Riemannian manifold whose sectional curvature is nonpositive, a compact connected subgroup \(\Omega\) of isometries that fixes a point \(o\) of \(M\) is coercive if and only if \(\Omega\) has no other fixed point but \(o\). The authors conclude with examples of the application of their result to Sobolev and Besov spaces.