Special Session 152: Recent advances in kinetic theory

Global Sobolev theory for Kolmogorov-Fokker-Planck operators with coefficients measurable in time and $VMO$ in space
Stefano Biagi
Politecnico di Milano
Italy
Co-Author(s):    Marco Bramanti
Abstract:
We consider Kolmogorov--Fokker--Planck operators of the form $$ \mathcal{L}u=\sum_{i,j=1}^{q}a_{ij}(x,t)u_{x_{i}x_{j}}+\sum_{k,j=1}^{N} b_{jk}x_{k}u_{x_{j}}-\partial_{t}u, $$ with $(x,t)\in\mathbb{R}^{N+1}$, $N\ge q\ge 1$. We assume that $a_{ij}\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}^{N+1})$, the matrix $\{a_{ij}\}$ is symmetric and uniformly positive on $\mathbb{R}^{q}$, and the drift term $$ Y=\sum_{k,j=1}^{N}b_{jk}x_{k}\partial_{x_{j}}-\partial_{t} $$ has a structure ensuring that the corresponding model operator with constant coefficients $a_{ij}$ is hypoelliptic, invariant with respect to a suitable Lie group operation, and $2$-homogeneous with respect to a suitable family of dilations. We further assume that the coefficients $a_{ij}$ belong to $VMO$ with respect to the space variable and are merely bounded measurable in $t$. For every $p\in(1,\infty)$, we prove global Sobolev estimates of the form \begin{align*} \|u\|_{W_{X}^{2,p}(S_{T})}\equiv & \sum_{i,j=1}^{q}\|u_{x_{i}x_{j}}\|_{L^{p}(S_{T})} +\|Yu\|_{L^{p}(S_{T})} +\sum_{i=1}^{q}\|u_{x_{i}}\|_{L^{p}(S_{T})} \ & +\|u\|_{L^{p}(S_{T})} \le c\left( \|\mathcal{L}u\|_{L^{p}(S_{T})}+ \|u\|_{L^{p}(S_{T})}\right), \end{align*} where $S_{T}=\mathbb{R}^{N}\times(-\infty,T)$ for any $T\in(-\infty,+\infty]$.