Boundary value problems and layer potentials on manifolds with cylindrical ends

Abstract

We extend the method of layer potentials to manifolds with boundary and cylindrical ends. To obtain this extension along the classical lines, we have to deal with several technical difficulties due to the non-compactness of the boundary, which prevents us from using the standard characterization of Fredholm and compact (pseudo-)differential operators between Sobolev spaces. Our approach, which involves the study of layer potentials depending on a parameter on compact manifolds as an intermediate step, yields the invertibility of the relevant boundary integral operators in the global, non-compact setting, which is rather unexpected. As an application, we prove the well-posedness of the non-homogeneous Dirichlet problem on manifolds with boundary and cylindrical ends. We also prove the existence of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map, which we show to be a pseudodifferential operator in the calculus of pseudodifferential operators that are ``almost translation invariant at infinity,'' a calculus that is closely related to Melrose's b-calculus \cite{me81, meaps}, which we study in this paper. The proof of the convergence of the layer potentials and of the existence of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map are based on a good understanding of resolvents of elliptic operators that are translation invariant at infinity.