On the decomposition principle and a Persson type theorem for general regular Dirichlet forms

Abstract: We present a decomposition principle for general regular Dirichlet forms satisfying a spatial local compactness condition. We use the decomposition principle to derive a Persson type theorem for the corresponding Dirichlet forms. In particular our setting covers Laplace-Beltrami operators on Riemannian manifolds, and Dirichlet forms associated to $\alpha$-stable processes in Euclidean space.