Towards a Gagliardo-Type Theory of Fractional Sobolev Spaces on Arbitrary Time Scales

Abstract

We propose a systematic Gagliardo-type formulation of fractional Sobolev spaces on arbitrary time scales, based on the Lebesgue Delta-measure and the off-diagonal interaction domain induced by the product measure. For fractional orders strictly between zero and one and for finite Lebesgue exponents, we define a nonlocal Gagliardo seminorm and the associated function space. This construction provides a notion of fractional regularity on time scales that is genuinely nonlocal and structurally distinct from the derivative-based approaches developed in the existing literature. We establish the basic functional properties of these spaces: they are Banach spaces in all admissible cases, reflexive in the strict range of exponents, and Hilbert in the quadratic case. On bounded time scales with finitely many connected components, we identify a sharp criterion for the construction to be nontrivial. We then compare the new framework with the derivative-based Riemann--Liouville fractional Sobolev spaces previously studied on time scales. On a continuous interval, in the supercritical regime, we obtain a norm equivalence with the bilateral Riemann--Liouville space on the subspace of functions with vanishing boundary trace. On hybrid time scales, we prove an explicit obstruction that rules out any analogous equivalence, due to the contribution of the mixed continuous--discrete interactions. On bounded hybrid time scales with finitely many connected components separated by a positive distance, we further establish a Poincaré-type inequality, a fractional Sobolev embedding, and fractional Hardy and Caffarelli--Kohn--Nirenberg-type inequalities for subcritical weights. Together, these results provide a complete functional and geometric framework, together with first geometric estimates, for the nonlocal Gagliardo-type approach to fractional Sobolev spaces on time scales.