Semi-bounded differential operators, contractive semigroups and beyond

In the present book the conditions are studied for the semi-boundedness of partial differential operators which is interpreted in different ways. Nowadays one knows rather much about L2-semibounded differential and pseudo-differential operators, although their complete characterization in analytic terms causes difficulties even for rather simple operators. Until recently almost nothing was known about analytic characterizations of semi-boundedness for differential operators in other Hilbert function spaces and in Banach function spaces. The goal of the present book is to partially fill this gap. Various types of semi-boundedness are considered and some relevant conditions which are either necessary and sufficient or best possible in a certain sense are given. Most of the results reported in this book are due to the authors.