Hardy spaces meet harmonic weights

Abstract

We investigate the Hardy space $H_L^1$ associated with a self-adjoint operator $L$ defined in a general setting in [S. Hofmann, et. al., Hardy spaces associated to non-negative self-adjoint operators satisfying Davies-Gaffney estimates, Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. 214 (2011), no. 1007, vi+78.]. We assume that there exists an $L$-harmonic non-negative function $h$ such that the semigroup $\exp (-tL)$, after applying the Doob transform related to $h$, satisfies the upper and lower Gaussian estimates. Under this assumption we describe an illuminating characterisation of the Hardy space $H_L^1$ in terms of a simple atomic decomposition associated with the $L$-harmonic function $h$. Our approach also yields a natural characterisation of the $BMO$-type space corresponding to the operator $L$ and dual to $H_L^1$ in the same circumstances. The applications include surprisingly wide range of operators, such as: Laplace operators with Dirichlet boundary conditions on some domains in ${\mathbb{R}}^d$, Schrödinger operators with certain potentials, and Bessel operators.