On the one dimensional Dirac equation with potential

TL;DR

This paper establishes dispersive decay estimates and spectral properties for the one-dimensional Dirac equation with potential, including classifications of threshold obstructions and high energy bounds, using novel methods adapted from Schrödinger operator analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a new high energy dispersive estimate approach for the Dirac equation, classifies threshold obstructions, and proves spectral properties under non-self-adjoint potentials.

Findings

Dirac evolution decays at rate t^{-1/2}

Threshold obstructions are at most one-dimensional

High energy bounds are near optimal with respect to initial data smoothness

Abstract

We investigate $L^1\to L^\infty$ dispersive estimates for the one dimensional Dirac equation with a potential. In particular, we show that the Dirac evolution satisfies the natural $t^{-\frac12}$ decay rate, which may be improved to $t^{-\frac32}$ at the cost of spatial weights when the thresholds are regular. We classify the structure of threshold obstructions, showing that there is at most a one dimensional space at each threshold. We show that, in the presence of a threshold resonance, the Dirac evolution satisfies the natural decay rate, and satisfies the faster weighted bound except for a piece of rank at most two, one per threshold. Further, we prove high energy dispersive bounds that are near optimal with respect to the required smoothness of the initial data. To do so we use a variant of a high energy argument that was originally developed to study Kato smoothing estimates for magnetic Schr\"odinger operators. This method has never been used before to obtain $L^1 \to L^\infty$ estimates. As a consequence of our analysis we prove a uniform limiting absorption principle, Strichartz estimates and prove the existence of an eigenvalue free region for the one dimensional Dirac operator with a non-self-adjoint potential.