A commuting-vector-field approach to some dispersive estimates

Abstract

We prove the pointwise decay of solutions to three linear equations: (1) the transport equation in phase space generalizing the classical Vlasov equation, (2) the linear Schrödinger equation, (3) the Airy (linear KdV) equation. The usual proofs use explicit representation formulae, and either obtain $L^1$—$L^\infty$ decay through directly estimating the fundamental solution in physical space or by studying oscillatory integrals coming from the representation in Fourier space. Our proof instead combines “vector field” commutators that capture the inherent symmetries of the relevant equations with conservation laws for mass and energy to get space–time weighted energy estimates. Combined with a simple version of Sobolev’s inequality this gives pointwise decay as desired. In the case of the Vlasov and Schrödinger equations, we can recover sharp pointwise decay; in the Schrödinger case we also show how to obtain local energy decay as well as Strichartz-type estimates. For the Airy equation we obtain a local energy decay that is almost sharp from the scaling point of view, but nonetheless misses the classical estimates by a gap. This work is inspired by the work of Klainerman on $L^2$—$L^\infty$ decay of wave equations, as well as the recent work of Fajman, Joudioux, and Smulevici on decay of mass distributions for the relativistic Vlasov equation.