H\({}^ p\)-theory on Euclidean space and the Dirac operator (Q923253)

In earlier papers to appear, the authors used the \(L^ p\)-boundedness of the principal-value Cauchy integral operator associated with Lipschitz domains in \({\mathbb{R}}^{n+1}\) to establish a boundary value theory for \(H^ p\)-spaces defined on such domains by a family of first-order differential operators said to be of Dirac type. These include not only the classical geometric differential operators, but also the rotation- invariant systems \(\partial_ T\). Such Dirac type operators are virtually the only ones for which a Cauchy integral theorem can exist. One purpose of the present paper is to outline these ideas in their ``ultimate form'' by exploiting the theory of Clifford algebras and Clifford modules more fully than in the earlier papers. But more importantly the authors formulate a class of boundary value problems for these Hardy spaces modelled on the usual Riemann-Hilbert problem and its generalizations for \({\bar \partial}\). Just as the latter contains the prototypical Dirichlet, Neumann and oblique-derivative problems, so this general class contains the well-known higher- dimensional versions of these problems as special cases. The point to be emphasized is that the splitting \({\mathbb{C}}={\mathbb{R}}\oplus i{\mathbb{R}}\) used previously to write a complex-valued function as \(F=U+iV\) has a natural interpretation in the context of Clifford theory. Now classical \(H^ p\)- theory, representation theory for classical Lie groups, and algebraic geometry questions concerning, say, compact Riemann surfaces all fall within complex analytic function theory. Hence if such operators of Dirac type as \(\partial_ T\) are to have a deeper meaning than being merely analogues of (\({\bar \partial},\partial)\) for higher-dimensional Euclidean space, they should be defined on more general Riemannian manifolds, with elliptic boundary value problems and \(H^ p\)-theory being just part of the analysis associated with them in the case of Euclidean space.