Hardy Type Inequalities Related to Degenerate Elliptic Differential Operators

Abstract

We prove some Hardy type inequalities related to quasilinear second order degenerate elliptic differential operators L_p(u):=-\nabla_L^*(\abs{\nabla_L u}^{p-2}\nabla_L u). If ϕis a positive weight such that -L_pϕ>= 0, then the Hardy type inequality c\int_Ω\frac{\abs u^p}{ϕ^p}\abs{\nabla_L ϕ}^p dξ\le \int_Ω\abs{\nabla_L u}^p dξholds. We find an explicit value of the constant involved, which, in most cases, results optimal. As particular case we derive Hardy inequalities for subelliptic operators on Carnot Groups.