Restrictions of higher derivatives of the Fourier transform

TL;DR

This paper investigates the restriction properties of higher derivatives of the Fourier transform to curved surfaces, establishing bounds in Sobolev spaces, for functions vanishing on the surface, and with surface regularity, using techniques inspired by spectral synthesis and restriction theorems.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of restriction bounds for derivatives of the Fourier transform in various functional settings, extending classical results to higher derivatives and different regularity assumptions.

Findings

Established Sobolev space restriction bounds for derivatives of Fourier transforms.

Derived bounds for functions vanishing on the surface to a certain order.

Showed how surface regularity of the Fourier transform improves restriction estimates.

Abstract

We consider several problems related to the restriction of $(\nabla^k) \hat{f}$ to a surface $\Sigma \subset \mathbb R^d$ with nonvanishing Gauss curvature. While such restrictions clearly exist if $f$ is a Schwartz function, there are few bounds available that enable one to take limits with respect to the $L_p(\mathbb R^d)$ norm of $f$. We establish three scenarios where it is possible to do so: $\bullet$ When the restriction is measured according to a Sobolev space $H^{-s}(\Sigma)$ of negative index. We determine the complete range of indices $(k, s, p)$ for which such a bound exists. $\bullet$ Among functions where $\hat{f}$ vanishes on $\Sigma$ to order $k-1$, the restriction of $(\nabla^k) \hat{f}$ defines a bounded operator from (this subspace of) $L_p(\mathbb R^d)$ to $L_2(\Sigma)$ provided $1 \leq p \leq \frac{2d+2}{d+3+4k}$. $\bullet$ When there is _a priori_ control of $\hat{f}|_\Sigma$ in a space $H^{\ell}(\Sigma)$, $\ell > 0$, this implies improved regularity for the restrictions of $(\nabla^k)\hat{f}$. If $\ell$ is large enough then even $\|\nabla \hat{f}\|_{L_2(\Sigma)}$ can be controlled in terms of $\|\hat{f}\|_{H^\ell(\Sigma)}$ and $\|f\|_{L_p(\mathbb R^d)}$ alone. The techniques underlying these results are inspired by the spectral synthesis work of Y. Domar, which provides a mechanism for $L_p$ approximation by "convolving along surfaces", and the Stein-Tomas restriction theorem. Our main inequality is a bilinear form bound with similar structure to the Stein--Tomas $T^*T$ operator, generalized to accommodate smoothing along $\Sigma$ and derivatives transverse to it. It is used both to establish basic $H^{-s}(\Sigma)$ bounds for derivatives of $\hat{f}$ and to bootstrap from surface regularity of $\hat{f}$ to regularity of its higher derivatives.