Bessel potentials and optimal Hardy and Hardy-Rellich inequalities

Abstract

We give necessary and sufficient conditions on a pair of positive radial functions V and W on a ball B of radius R in R^n,$n \geq 1$, so that the following inequalities hold for all $u \in C_{0}^{\infty}(B)$: $\int_{B}V(x)|\nabla u |^{2}dx \geq \int_{B} W(x)u^2dx$, and $\int_{B}V(x)|\Delta u |^{2}dx \geq \int_{B} W(x)|\nabla u|^{2}dx+(n-1)\int_{B}(\frac{V(x)}{|x|^2}-\frac{V_r(|x|)}{|x|})|\nabla u|^2dx$. This characterization makes a very useful connection between Hardy-type inequalities and the oscillatory behaviour of certain ordinary differential equations, and helps in the identification of a large number of such couples (V, W) - that we call Bessel pairs -as well as the best constants in the corresponding inequalities. This allows us to improve, extend, and unify many results -old and new- about Hardy and Hardy-Rellich type inequalities, such as those obtained by Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg, Brezis-Vazquez, Wang-Willem, Adimurthi-Chaudhuri-Ramaswamy, Filippas-Tertikas, Adimurthi-Grossi -Santra, Tertikas-Zographopoulos, and Blanchet-Bonforte-Dolbeault-Grillo-Vasquez.