A Hardy type inequality for W ^m,1(0, 1) functions

Abstract

In this paper, we consider functions ${u\in W^{m,1}(0,1)}$ where m ≥ 2 and u(0) = Du(0) = · · · = D ^m-1 u(0) = 0. Although it is not true in general that ${\frac{D^ju(x)}{x^{m-j}} \in L^1(0,1)}$ for ${j\in \{0,1,\ldots,m-1\}}$, we prove that ${\frac{D^ju(x)}{x^{m-j-k}} \in W^{k,1}(0,1)}$ if k ≥ 1 and 1 ≤ j + k ≤ m, with j, k integers. Furthermore, we have the following Hardy type inequality,

$$\left\|{D^k\left({\frac{D^ju(x)}{x^{m-j-k}}}\right)}\right\|_{L^1(0,1)} \leq \frac {(k-1)!}{(m-j-1)!} \|{D^mu}\|_{L^1(0,1)},$$

where the constant is optimal.