The Dirac equation in two dimensions: Dispersive estimates and classification of threshold obstructions

Abstract

We investigate dispersive estimates for the two dimensional Dirac equation with a potential. In particular, we show that the Dirac evolution satisfies a $t^{-1}$ decay rate as an operator from the Hardy space $H^1$ to $BMO$, the space of functions of bounded mean oscillation. This estimate, along with the $L^2$ conservation law allows one to deduce a family of Strichartz estimates. We classify the structure of threshold obstructions as being composed of s-wave resonances, p-wave resonances and eigenfunctions. We show that, as in the case of the Schr\"odinger evolution, the presence of a threshold s-wave resonance does not destroy the $t^{-1}$ decay rate. As a consequence of our analysis we obtain a limiting absorption principle in the neighborhood of the threshold, and show that there are only finitely many eigenvalues in the spectral gap.