Coercivity and regularity for nonlocal divergence-form operators with measurable kernels

Abstract

We consider nonlocal divergence-form operators of the type $$PV{\int }_{{\mathbb{R}}^n}(u(x)-u(y))K(x,y)dy=0\text{in}{B}_2,$$ where the kernel $K$ is symmetric ($K(x,y)=K(y,x)$). We first show that there exists a kernel satisfying the conditions of \cite[Open Question 2.1]{FRRO24} for which this problem admits a bounded discontinuous weak solution, answering that question negatively. We then impose the stronger one-sided lower bound suggested in \cite{CS20,IS20}, together with an $L^p$ bound of $K$ over annuli, and prove a coercivity estimate and interior Hölder regularity of weak solutions. In particular, this establishes the coercivity conjecture of \cite{CS20,IS20} under the additional $L^p$ hypothesis for $p>1$.

arXiv comment7 pages