We study diffusion processes and stochastic flows which are time-changed random perturbations of a deterministic flow on a manifold. Using non-symmetric Dirichlet forms and their convergence in a sense close to the Mosco-convergence, we prove that, as the deterministic flow is accelerated, the diffusion process converges in law to a diffusion defined on a different space. This averaging principle also holds at the level of the flows. Our contributions in this article include: a proof of an original averaging principle for stochastic flows of kernels; the definition and study of a convergence of sequences of non-symmetric bilinear forms defined on different spaces; the study of weighted Sobolev spaces on metric graphs or "books".
We study diffusion processes driven by a Brownian motion with regular drift in a finite dimension setting. The drift has two components on different time scales, a fast conservative component and a slow dissipative component. Using the theory of Dirichlet form and Mosco-convergence we obtain simpler proofs, interpretations and new results of the averaging principle for such processes when we speed up the conservative component. As a result, one obtains an effective process with values in the space of connected level sets of the conserved quantities. The use of Dirichlet forms provides a simple…
We give some relationships between the first Dirichlet eigenvalues and the exit time moments for the general symmetric Markov processes. As applications, we present some examples, including symmetric diffusions and $α$-stable processes, and provide the estimates of their first Dirichlet eigenvalues and the exit time moments.
Nakao's stochastic integrals for continuous additive functionals of zero energy are extended from the symmetric Dirichlet forms setting to the non-symmetric Dirichlet forms setting. Ito's formula in terms of the extended stochastic integrals is obtained.
We establish transience criteria for symmetric non-local Dirichlet forms on $L^2({\mathbb R}^d)$ in terms of the coefficient growth rates at infinity. Applying these criteria, we find a necessary and sufficient condition for recurrence of Dirichlet forms of symmetric stable-like with unbounded/degenerate coefficients. This condition indicates that both of the coefficient growth rates of small and big jump parts affect the sample path properties of the associated symmetric jump processes.
In this paper, we consider symmetric $α$-stable processes on (unbounded) horn-shaped regions which are non-uniformly $C^{1,1}$ near infinity. By using probabilistic approaches extensively, we establish two-sided Dirichlet heat estimates of such processes for all time. The estimates are very sensitive with respect to the reference function corresponding to each horn-shaped region. Our results also cover the case that the associated Dirichlet semigroup is not intrinsically ultracontractive. A striking observation from our estimates is that, even when the associated Dirichlet semigroup is intrins…
In this paper, we derive explicit sharp two-sided estimates for the Dirichlet heat kernels of a large class of symmetric (but not necessarily rotationally symmetric) Lévy processes on half spaces for all $t>0$. These Lévy processes may or may not have Gaussian component. When Lévy density is comparable to a decreasing function with damping exponent $β$,our estimate is explicit in terms of the distance to the boundary, the Lévy exponent and the damping exponent $β$ of Lévy density.
In this note, we present explicit conditions for symmetric gradient type Dirichlet forms to be recurrent. This type of Dirichlet form is typically strongly local and hence associated to a diffusion. We consider the one dimensional case and the multidimensional case, as well as the case with reflecting boundary conditions. Our main achievement is that the explicit results are obtained under quite weak assumptions on the closability, hence regularity of the underlying coefficients. Especially in dimension one, where a Hamza type condition is assumed, the construction of the sequence of functions…
This paper studies strongly local symmetric Dirichlet forms on general measure spaces. The underlying space is equipped with the intrinsic metric induced by the Dirichlet form, with respect to which the metric measure space does not necessarily satisfy volume-doubling property. Assuming Nash-type inequality, it is proved in this paper that outside a properly exceptional set, given a pointwise on-diagonal heat kernel upper bound in terms of the volume function, the comparable heat kernel lower bound also holds. The only assumption made on the volume growth rate is that it can be bounded by a co…
We apply improved elliptic regularity results to a concrete symmetric Dirichlet form and various non-symmetric Dirichlet forms with possibly degenerate symmetric diffusion matrix. Given the (non)-symmetric Dirichlet form, using elliptic regularity results and stochastic calculus we show weak existence of the corresponding singular stochastic differential equation for any starting point in some subset E of R^d. As an application of our approach we can show the existence of n-regularized Liouville Brownian motion only via Dirichlet form theory starting from all points in R^2.
We give sufficient conditions for Mosco convergences for the following three cases: symmetric locally uniformly elliptic diffusions, symmetric Lévy processes, and symmetric jump processes in terms of the $L^1(\mathbb R;dx)$-local convergence of the (elliptic) coefficients, the characteristic exponents and the jump density functions,respectively. We stress that the global path properties of the corresponding Markov processes such as recurrence/transience, and conservativeness/explosion are not preserved under Mosco convergences and we give several examples where such situations indeed happen.
In classical PDE theory, Widder's theorem gives a representation for nonnegative solutions of the heat equation on $\mathbb{R}^n$. We show that an analogous theorem holds for local weak solutions of the canonical "heat equation" on a symmetric local Dirichlet space satisfying a local parabolic Harnack inequality.
In this paper we show that Dirichlet heat kernel estimates for a class of (not necessarily symmetric) Markov processes are stable under non-local Feynman-Kac perturbations. This class of processes includes, among others, (reflected) symmetric stable-like processes on closed $d$-sets in $\bR^d$, killed symmetric stable processes, censored stable processes in $C^{1, 1}$ open sets as well as stable processes with drifts in bounded $C^{1, 1}$ open sets.
We consider a large class of symmetric pure jump Markov processes dominated by isotropic unimodal Lévy processes with weak scaling conditions. First, we establish sharp two-sided heat kernel estimates for these processes in $C^{1,1}$ open sets. As corollaries of our main results, we obtain sharp two-sided Green function estimates and a scale invariant boundary Harnack inequality with explicit decay rates in $C^{1,1}$ open sets.
In this paper, we consider the following symmetric non-local Dirichlet forms of pure jump type on metric measure space $(M,d,μ)$: $$\mathcal{E}(f,g)=\int_{M\times M} (f(x)-f(y))(g(x)-g(y))\,J(dx,dy),$$ where $J(dx,dy)$ is a symmetric Radon measure on $M\times M\setminus {\rm diag}$ that may have different scalings for small jumps and large jumps. Under general volume doubling condition on $(M,d,μ)$ and some mild quantitative assumptions on $J(dx, dy)$ that are allowed to have light tails of polynomial decay at infinity, we establish stability results for two-sided heat kernel estimates as well…
In this paper, we consider a large class of purely discontinuous rotationally symmetric Levy processes. We establish sharp two-sided estimates for the transition densities of such processes killed upon leaving an open set D. When D is a κ-fat open set, the sharp two-sided estimates are given in terms of surviving probabilities and the global transition density of the Levy process. When D is a C^{1, 1} open set and the Levy exponent of the process is given by Ψ(ξ)= ϕ(|ξ|^2) with ϕbeing a complete Bernstein function satisfying a mild growth condition at infinity, our two-sided estimates are expl…
We develop sufficient analytic conditions for recurrence and transience of non-sectorial perturbations of possibly non-symmetric Dirichlet forms on a general state space. These form an important subclass of generalized Dirichlet forms which were introduced in \cite{St1}. In case there exists an associated process, we show how the analytic conditions imply recurrence and transience in the classical probabilistic sense. As an application, we consider a generalized Dirichlet form given on a closed or open subset of $\mathbb{R}^d$ which is given as a divergence free first order perturbation of a n…
Given a symmetric Dirichlet form $(\mathcal{E},\mathcal{F})$ on a (non-trivial) $σ$-finite measure space $(E,\mathcal{B},m)$ with associated Markovian semigroup $\{T_{t}\}_{t\in(0,\infty)}$, we prove that $(\mathcal{E},\mathcal{F})$ is both irreducible and recurrent if and only if there is no non-constant $\mathcal{B}$-measurable function $u:E\to[0,\infty]$ that is \emph{$\mathcal{E}$-excessive}, i.e., such that $T_{t}u\leq u$ $m$-a.e.\ for any $t\in(0,\infty)$. We also prove that these conditions are equivalent to the equality $\{u\in\mathcal{F}_{e}\mid \mathcal{E}(u,u)=0\}=\mathbb{R}\mathbf{…
After recalling basic features of the theory of symmetric quasi regular Dirichlet forms we show how by applying it to the stochastic quantization equation, with Gaussian space-time noise, one obtains weak solutions in a large invariant set. Subsequently, we discuss non symmetric quasi regular Dirichlet forms and show in particular by two simple examples in infinite dimensions that infinitesimal invariance, does not imply global invariance. We also present a simple example of non-Markov uniqueness in infinite dimensions.
In the context of a metric measure Dirichlet space satisfying volume doubling and Poincaré inequality, we prove the parabolic Harnack inequality for weak solutions of the heat equation associated with local nonsymmetric bilinear forms. In particular, we show that these weak solutions are locally bounded.
We study relations and characterizations of various elliptic Harnack inequalities for symmetric non-local Dirichlet forms on metric measure spaces. We allow the scaling function be state-dependent and the state space possibly disconnected. Stability of elliptic Harnack inequalities is established under certain regularity conditions and implication for a priori Hölder regularity of harmonic functions is explored. New equivalent statements for parabolic Harnack inequalities of non-local Dirichlet forms are obtained in terms of elliptic Harnack inequalities.
We define the $L$-measure on the set of Dirichlet characters as an analogue of the Plancherel measure, once considered as a measure on the irreducible characters of the symmetric group. We compare the two measures and study the limit in distribution of characters evaluations when the size of the underlying group grows. These evaluations are proven to converge in law to imaginary exponentials of a Cauchy distribution in the same way as the rescaled windings of the complex Brownian motion. This contrasts with the case of the symmetric group where the renormalised characters converge in law to Ga…
Let $k:E\times E\to [0,\infty)$ be a non-negative measurable function on some locally compact separable metric space $E$. We provide some simple conditions such that the quadratic form with jump kernel $k$ becomes a regular lower bounded (non-local, non-symmetric) semi-Dirichlet form. If $E=\R^n$ we identify the generator of the semi-Dirichlet form and its (formal) adjoint. In particular, we obtain a closed expression of the adjoint of the stable-like generator $-(-Δ)^{α(x)}$ in the sense of Bass. Our results complement a recent paper by Fukushima and Uemura (2012) and establishes the relation…
This paper studies homogenization of symmetric non-local Dirichlet forms with $α$-stable-like jumping kernels in one-parameter stationary ergodic environment. Under suitable conditions, we establish homogenization results and identify the limiting effective Dirichlet forms explicitly. The coefficients of the jumping kernels of Dirichlet forms and symmetrizing measures are allowed to be degenerate and unbounded; and the coefficients in the effective Dirichlet forms can be degenerate.
This paper provides sharp Dirichlet heat kernel estimates in inner uniform domains, including bounded inner uniform domains, in the context of certain (possibly non-symmetric) bilinear forms resembling Dirichlet forms. For instance, the results apply to the Dirichlet heat kernel associated with a uniformly elliptic divergence form operator with symmetric second order part and bounded measurable coefficients in inner uniform domains in $\mathbb R^n$. The results are applicable to any convex domain, to the complement of any convex domain, and to more exotic examples such as the interior and exte…
The studies of Ramírez, Hino-Ramírez, and Ariyoshi-Hino showed that an integrated version of Varadhan's asymptotics holds for Markovian semigroups associated with arbitrary strong local symmetric Dirichlet forms. In this paper, we consider non-symmetric bilinear forms that are the sum of strong local symmetric Dirichlet forms and lower-order perturbed terms. We give sufficient conditions for the associated semigroups to have asymptotics of the same type.
The aim of this paper is to study the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators in the context of Dirichlet forms and especially to figure out their probabilistic counterparts. Regarding irreducible Dirichlet forms, we will show that the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators for them are associated with the trace Dirichlet forms corresponding to the time changed processes on the boundary. Furthermore, the Dirichlet-to-Neumann operators for perturbations of Dirichlet forms will be also explored. It turns out that for typical cases such a Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator corresponds to a quasi-regular positivity pre…
In this paper, we establish stability of parabolic Harnack inequalities for symmetric non-local Dirichlet forms on metric measure spaces under general volume doubling condition. We obtain their stable equivalent characterizations in terms of the jumping kernels, variants of cutoff Sobolev inequalities, and Poincaré inequalities. In particular, we establish the connection between parabolic Harnack inequalities and two-sided heat kernel estimates, as well as with the Hölder regularity of parabolic functions for symmetric non-local Dirichlet forms.
In this paper, we consider the following symmetric Dirichlet forms on a metric measure space $(M,d,μ)$: $$\mathcal{E}(f,g) = \mathcal{E}(^{(c)}(f,g)+\int_{M\times M} (f(x)-f(y))(g(x)-g(y))\,J(dx,dy),$$ where $\mathcal{E}(^{(c)}$ is a strongly local symmetric bilinear form and $J(dx,dy)$ is a symmetric Random measure on $M\times M$. Under general volume doubling condition on $(M,d,μ)$ and some mild assumptions on scaling functions, we establish stability results for upper bounds of heat kernel (resp.\ two-sided heat kernel estimates) in terms of the jumping kernels, the cut-off Sobolev inequali…
We develop sufficient analytic conditions for conservativeness of non-sectorial perturbations of symmetric Dirichlet forms which can be represented through a carré du champ on a locally compact separable metric space. These form an important subclass of generalized Dirichlet forms which were introduced in \cite{St1}. In case there exists an associated strong Feller process, the analytic conditions imply conservativeness, i.e. non-explosion of the associated process in the classical probabilistic sense. As an application of our general results on locally compact separable metric state spaces, w…
The Lauricella theory of multiple hypergeometric functions is used to shed some light on certain distributional properties of the mean of a Dirichlet process. This approach leads to several results, which are illustrated here. Among these are a new and more direct procedure for determining the exact form of the distribution of the mean, a correspondence between the distribution of the mean and the parameter of a Dirichlet process, a characterization of the family of Cauchy distributions as the set of the fixed points of this correspondence, and an extension of the Markov-Krein identity. Moreov…
This paper proves the strong parabolic Harnack inequality for local weak solutions to the heat equation associated with time-dependent (nonsymmetric) bilinear forms. The underlying metric measure Dirichlet space is assumed to satisfy the volume doubling condition, the strong Poincaré inequality, and a cutoff Sobolev inequality. The metric is not required to be geodesic. Further results include a weighted Poincaré inequality, as well as upper and lower bounds for non-symmetric heat kernels.
Variational formulas for the Laplace transform of the exit time from an open set of a Hunt process generated by a regular lower bounded semi-Dirichlet form are established. While for symmetric Markov processes, variational formulas are derived for the exponential moments of the exit time. As applications, we provide some comparison theorems and quantitative relations of the exponential moments and Poincaré inequalities.
This paper is concerned with a class of singular stable-like Dirichlet forms on $\R^d$, which are generated by $d$ independent copies of a one-dimensional symmetric $α$-stable process, and whose Lévy jump kernel measure is concentrated on the union of the coordinate axes. Explicit and sharp criteria for Poincaré inequality, super Poincaré inequality and weak Poincaré inequality of such singular Dirichlet forms are presented. When the reference measure is a product measure on $\R^d$, we also consider the entropy inequality for the associated Dirichlet forms, which is similar to the log-Sobolev …
We present a concrete family of fractals, which we call the (two-dimensional) thin scale irregular Sierpiński gaskets and each of which is equipped with a canonical strongly local regular symmetric Dirichlet form. We prove that any fractal $K$ in this family satisfies the full off-diagonal heat kernel estimates with some space-time scale function $Ψ_{K}$ and the singularity of the associated energy measures with respect to the canonical volume measure (uniform distribution) on $K$, and also that the decay rate of $r^{-2}Ψ_{K}(r)$ to $0$ as $r\downarrow 0$ can be made arbitrarily slow by suitab…
We consider a class of jump processes in euclidean space which are associated to a certain non-local symmetric Dirichlet form. We prove a lower bound on the occupation times of sets, and that a support theorem holds for these processes.
The two parameter Poisson-Dirichlet distribution $PD(α,θ)$ is the distribution of an infinite dimensional random discrete probability. It is a generalization of Kingman's Poisson-Dirichlet distribution. The two parameter Dirichlet process $Π_{α,θ,ν_0}$ is the law of a pure atomic random measure with masses following the two parameter Poisson-Dirichlet distribution. In this article we focus on the construction and the properties of the infinite dimensional symmetric diffusion processes with respective symmetric measures $PD(α,θ)$ and $Π_{α,θ,ν_0}$. The methods used come from the theory of Diric…
We show that for a strongly local, regular symmetric Dirichlet form over a complete, locally compact geodesic metric space, full off-diagonal heat kernel estimates with walk dimension strictly larger than two (\emph{sub-Gaussian} estimates) imply the singularity of the energy measures with respect to the symmetric measure, verifying a conjecture by M.\ T.\ Barlow in [Contemp.\ Math., vol.\ 338, 2003, pp.\ 11--40]. We also prove that in the contrary case of walk dimension two, i.e., where full off-diagonal \emph{Gaussian} estimates of the heat kernel hold, the symmetric measure and the energy m…
We consider the Dirichlet form given by \sE(f,f)&=&{1/2}\int_{\bR^d}\sum_{i,j=1}^d a_{ij}(x)\frac{\partial f(x)}{\partial x_i} \frac{\partial f(x)}{\partial x_j} dx &+&\int_{\bR^d\times \bR^d} (f(y)-f(x))^2J(x,y)dxdy. Under the assumption that the $\{a_{ij}\}$ are symmetric and uniformly elliptic and with suitable conditions on $J$, the nonlocal part, we obtain upper and lower bounds on the heat kernel of the Dirichlet form. We also prove a Harnack inequality and a regularity theorem for functions that are harmonic with respect to $\sE$.
In this paper, we consider symmetric jump processes of mixed-type on metric measure spaces under general volume doubling condition, and establish stability of two-sided heat kernel estimates and heat kernel upper bounds. We obtain their stable equivalent characterizations in terms of the jumping kernels, variants of cut-off Sobolev inequalities, and the Faber-Krahn inequalities. In particular, we establish stability of heat kernel estimates for $α$-stable-like processes even with $α\ge 2$ when the underlying spaces have walk dimensions larger than $2$, which has been one of the major open prob…
This survey paper is a structured concise summary of four of our recent papers on the stochastic regularity of diffusions that are associated to regular strongly local (but not necessarily symmetric) Dirichlet forms. Here by stochastic regularity we mean the question whether a diffusion associated to a Dirichlet form as mentioned above can be started and identified as a solution to an explicit stochastic differential equation for explicitly given starting points. Beyond the stochastic regularity, we consider its applications to strong existence and pathwise uniqueness of singular stochastic di…
We consider the symmetric non-local Dirichlet form $(E, F)$ given by \[ E (f,f)=\int_{R^d} \int_{R^d} (f(y)-f(x))^2 J(x,y) dx dy \] with $F$ the closure of the set of $C^1$ functions on $R^d$ with compact support with respect to $E_1$, where $E_1 (f, f):=E (f, f)+\int_{R^d} f(x)^2 dx$, and where the jump kernel $J$ satisfies \[ κ_1|y-x|^{-d-α} \leq J(x,y) \leq κ_2|y-x|^{-d-β} \] for $0<α< β<2, |x-y|<1$. This assumption allows the corresponding jump process to have jump intensities whose size depends on the position of the process and the direction of the jump. We prove upper and lower estimate…
We prove a scale-invariant boundary Harnack principle for inner uni- form domains in metric measure Dirichlet spaces. We assume that the Dirichlet form is symmetric, strongly local, regular, and that the volume doubling property and two-sided sub-Gaussian heat kernel bounds are satisfied. We make no assumptions on the pseudo-metric induced by the Dirichlet form, hence the underlying space can be a fractal space.
We consider symmetric Dirichlet forms on locally compact and non-locally compact spaces and provide an elementary proof for their closability with respect to energy dominant measures. We also discuss how to use known potential theoretic results to furnish an alternative proof of this theorem.
Let $(\E,\F)$ be a symmetric non-local Dirichlet from with unbounded coefficient on $L^2(\R^d;\d x)$ defined by $$\E(f,g)=\iint_{\R^d\times \R^d} (f(y)-f(x))(g(x)-g(y)){W(x,y)}\, J(x,\d y)\,\d x, \quad f,g\in \F,$$ where $J(x,\d y)$ is regarded as the jumping kernel for a pure-jump symmetric Lévy-type process with bounded coefficients, and $W(x,y)$ is seen as a weighted (unbounded) function. We establish sharp criteria for compactness and non-compactness of the associated Markovian semigroup $(P_t)_{t\ge0}$ on $L^2(\R^d;\d x)$. In particular, we prove that if $J(x,\d y)=|x-y|^{-d-α}\,\d y$ wit…
We study the time regularity of local weak solutions of the heat equation in the context of local regular symmetric Dirichlet spaces. Under two basic and rather minimal assumptions, namely, the existence of certain cut-off functions and a very weak $L^2$ Gaussian type upper-bound for the heat semigroup, we prove that the time derivatives of a local weak solution of the heat equation are themselves local weak solutions. This applies, for instance, to local weak solutions of parabolic equations with uniformly elliptic symmetric divergence form second order operators with measurable coefficients.…
Starting with a regular symmetric Dirichlet form on a locally compact separable metric space $X$, our paper studies elements of vector analysis, $L_p$-spaces of vector fields and related Sobolev spaces. These tools are then employed to obtain existence and uniqueness results for some quasilinear elliptic PDE and SPDE in variational form on $X$ by standard methods. For many of our results locality is not assumed, but most interesting applications involve local regular Dirichlet forms on fractal spaces such as nested fractals and Sierpinski carpets.
