Resolvent characterisation of generators of cosine functions and C 0-groups

The paper provides new characterisations of generators of cosine functions and C ₀-groups on UMD spaces and their applications to some classical problems in cosine function theory. In particular, we show that on UMD spaces, generators of cosine functions and C ₀-groups can be characterised by means of a complex inversion formula. This allows us to provide a strikingly elementary proof of Fattorini’s result on square root reduction for cosine function generators on UMD spaces. Moreover, we give a cosine function analogue of McIntosh’s characterisation of the boundedness of the H ^∞ functional calculus for sectorial operators in terms of square function estimates. Another result says that the class of cosine function generators on a Hilbert space is exactly the class of operators which possess a dilation to a multiplication operator on a vector-valued L ₂ space. Finally, we prove a cosine function analogue of the Gomilko-Feng-Shi characterisation of C ₀-semigroup generators and apply it to answer in the affirmative a question by Fattorini on the growth bounds of perturbed cosine functions on Hilbert spaces.