Approximation of the semigroup generated by the Robin Laplacian in terms of the Gaussian semigroup

We consider the Laplacian ΔR subject to Robin boundary conditions on the space , where Ω is a smooth, bounded, open subset of RN. It is known that ΔR generates an analytic contraction semigroup. We show how this semigroup can be obtained from the Gaussian semigroup on C₀(RN) via a Trotter formula. As the main ingredient, we construct a positive, contractive, linear extension operator Eβ from to C₀(RN) which maps an operator core for ΔR into the domain of the generator of the Gaussian semigroup.