L p -theory for second-order elliptic operators with unbounded coefficients

Second-order elliptic operators with unbounded coefficients of the form ${Au := -{\rm div}(a\nabla u) + F . \nabla u + Vu}$ in ${L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{N}) (N \in \mathbb{N}, 1 < p < \infty)}$ are considered, which are the same as in recent papers Metafune et?al. (Z Anal Anwendungen 24:497–521, 2005), Arendt et?al. (J Operator Theory 55:185–211, 2006; J Math Anal Appl 338: 505–517, 2008) and Metafune et?al. (Forum Math 22:583–601, 2010). A new criterion for the m-accretivity and m-sectoriality of A in ${L^{p}(\mathbb{R}^{N})}$ is presented via a certain identity that behaves like a sesquilinear form over L ^p ×?L ^p'. It partially improves the results in (Metafune et?al. in Z Anal Anwendungen 24:497–521, 2005) and (Metafune et?al. in Forum Math 22:583–601, 2010) with a different approach. The result naturally extends Kato’s criterion in (Kato in Math Stud 55:253–266, 1981) for the nonnegative selfadjointness to the case of p ≠?2. The simplicity is illustrated with the typical example ${Au = -u\hspace{1pt}'' + x^{3}u\hspace{1pt}' + c |x|^{\gamma}u}$ in ${L^p(\mathbb{R})}$ which is dealt with in (Arendt et?al. in J Operator Theory 55:185–211, 2006; Arendt et?al. in J Math Anal Appl 338: 505–517, 2008).