On extensions of local Dirichlet forms (Q681298)

Let \((X,\mu)\) be a locally compact \(\sigma\)-compact measure space and consider a Dirichlet form \(\mathcal E\) on \(L_2(X;\mu)\) which is supposed to be inner regular, that is, regular in restriction to functions of compact support, and local in the sense that \(\mathcal E(\varphi ,\psi)=0\) for all \(\varphi, \psi \in D(\mathcal E)\) such that \(\varphi\psi =0\). The author constructs two Dirichlet forms \(\mathcal E_m\) and \(\mathcal E_M\) with the properties \[ \mathcal E_m\leq \mathcal E\leq \mathcal E_M, \] \(\mathcal E_m\supseteq \mathcal E_M,\) \((\mathcal E_M)_m=\mathcal E_m\) and \((\mathcal E_m)_M=\mathcal E_M\), and analyzes the family of local, inner regular Dirichlet forms \(\mathcal F\) which extend \(\mathcal E\) and satisfy \(\mathcal E_m\leq \mathcal F\leq \mathcal E_M\). It is proved that the latter bounds are valid if and only if \(\mathcal F_M=\mathcal E_M\), or \(\mathcal F_m=\mathcal E_m\), or \(D(\mathcal E_M)\) is an order ideal of \(D(\mathcal F)\). Alternatively, the forms \(\mathcal F\) are characterized by \(D(\mathcal E_M)\cap L_\infty (X)\) being an algebraic ideal of \(D(\mathcal F)\cap L_\infty (X)\). As an application of the obtained results, the author shows that if \(\mathcal E\) and \(\mathcal F\) are strongly local forms, then the Ariyoshi-Hino set-theoretic distance is the same for each of the forms \(\mathcal E\), \(\mathcal E_M\) and \(\mathcal F\). If in addition \(\mathcal E_m\) is strongly local, then it also defines the same distance. Finally, the uniqueness condition \(\mathcal E_M=\mathcal E_m\) is characterized by deriving suitable capacity estimates.