Littlewood-Paley-Stein functionals: an R-boundedness approach

Abstract: Let $L = \Delta + V$ be a Schr\"odinger operator with a non-negative potential $V$ on a complete Riemannian manifold $M$. We prove that the vertical Littlewood-Paley-Stein functional associated with $L$ is bounded on $L^p(M)$ {\it if and only if} the set ${\sqrt{t}\, \nabla e^{-tL}, \, t > 0}$ is ${\mathcal R}$-bounded on $L^p(M)$. We also introduce and study more general functionals. For a sequence of functions $m_k : [0, \infty) \to \mathbb{C}$, we define $$H((f_k)) := \Big( \sum_k \int_0^\infty | \nabla m_k(tL) f_k |^2 dt \Big)^{1/2} + \Big( \sum_k \int_0^\infty | \sqrt{V} m_k(tL) f_k |^2 dt \Big)^{1/2}.$$ Under fairly reasonable assumptions on $M$ we prove boundedness of $H$ on $L^p(M)$ in the sense $$| H((f_k)) |_p \le C\, \Big| \Big( \sum_k |f_k|^2 \Big)^{1/2} \Big|_p$$ for some constant $C$ independent of $(f_k)_k$. A lower estimate is also proved on the dual space $L^{p'}$. We introduce and study boundedness of other Littlewood-Paley-Stein type functionals and discuss their relationships to the Riesz transform. Several examples are given in the paper.