Interpolation Spaces And Allied Topics In Analysis

This volume contains the Proceedings of the Conference on Interpolation Theory and Applications in honor of Professor Michael Cwikel (Miami, FL, 2006). The central topic of this book is interpolation theory in its broadest sense, with special attention to its applications to analysis. The articles include applications to classical analysis, harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, function spaces, image processing, geometry of Banach spaces, and more. This volume emphasizes remarkable connections between several branches of pure and applied analysis. Graduate students and researchers in analysis will find it very useful.

This volume contains 16 refereed research articles on function spaces, interpolation theory and related fields. Topics covered: theory of function spaces, Hankel-type and related operators, analysis on bounded symmetric domains, partial differential equations, Green functions, special functions, homogenization theory, Sobolev embeddings, Coxeter groups, spectral theory and wavelets. The book will be of interest to both researchers and graduate students working in interpolation theory, function spaces and operators, partial differential equations and analysis on bounded symmetric domains.

The works of Jaak Peetre constitute the main body of this treatise. Important contributors are also J. L. Lions and A. P. Calderon, not to mention several others. We, the present authors, have thus merely compiled and explained the works of others (with the exception of a few minor contributions of our own). Let us mention the origin of this treatise. A couple of years ago, J. Peetre suggested to the second author, J. Lofstrom, writing a book on interpolation theory and he most generously put at Lofstrom's disposal an unfinished manu script, covering parts of Chapter 1-3 and 5 of this book. Subsequently, LOfstrom prepared a first rough, but relatively complete manuscript of lecture notes. This was then partly rewritten and thouroughly revised by the first author, J. Bergh, who also prepared the notes and comment and most of the exercises. Throughout the work, we have had the good fortune of enjoying Jaak Peetre's kind patronage and invaluable counsel. We want to express our deep gratitude to him. Thanks are also due to our colleagues for their support and help. Finally, we are sincerely grateful to Boe1 Engebrand, Lena Mattsson and Birgit Hoglund for their expert typing of our manuscript.

The theory of interpolation spaces has its origin in the classical work of Riesz and Marcinkiewicz but had its first flowering in the years around 1960 with the pioneering work of Aronszajn, Calderón, Gagliardo, Krein, Lions and a few others. It is interesting to note that what originally triggered off this avalanche were concrete problems in the theory of elliptic boundary value problems related to the scale of Sobolev spaces. Later on, applications were found in many other areas of mathematics: harmonic analysis, approximation theory, theoretical numerical analysis, geometry of Banach spaces, nonlinear functional analysis, etc. Besides this the theory has a considerable internal beauty and must by now be regarded as an independent branch of analysis, with its own problems and methods. Further development in the 1970s and 1980s included the solution by the authors of this book of one of the outstanding questions in the theory of the real method, the K-divisibility problem. In a way, this book harvests the results of that solution, as well as drawing heavily on a classic paper by Aronszajn and Gagliardo, which appeared in 1965 but whose real importance was not realized until a decade later. This includes a systematic use of the language, if not the theory, of categories. In this way the book also opens up many new vistas which still have to be explored. This volume is the first of three planned books. Volume II will deal with the complex method, while Volume III will deal with applications.

In the modern study of Hilbert space operators there has been an increasingly subtle involvement with analytic function theory. This is evident in the analysis of subnormal operators, Toeplitz operators and Hankel operators, for example. On the other hand the operator theoretic viewpoint of interpolation by analytic functions is a powerful one. There has been significant activity in recent years, within these enriching interactions, and the time seemed right for an overview ot the main lines of development. The Advanced Study Institute 'Operators and Function Theory' in Lancaster, 1984, was devoted to this, and this book contains ex panded versions (and one contraction) of the main lecture prog ramme. These varied articles, by prominent researchers, include, for example, a survey of recent results on subnormal operators, recent work of Soviet mathematicians on Hankel and Toeplitz operators, expositions of the decomposition theory and inter polation theory for Bergman, Besov and Bloch spaces, with applic ations for special operators, the Krein space approach to inter polation problems, •• and much more. It is hoped that these proceedings will bring all this lively mathematics to a wider audience. Sincere thanks are due to the Scientific Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation for the generous support that made the institute possible, and to the London Mathematical Society and the British Council for important additional support. Warm thanks also go to Barry Johnson and the L.M.S. for early guidance, and to my colleague Graham Jameson for much organisational support.