This book deals with elliptic differential equations, providing the analytic background necessary for the treatment of associated spectral questions, and covering important topics previously scattered throughout the literature. Starting with the basics of elliptic operators and their naturally associated function spaces, the authors then proceed to cover various related topics of current and continuing importance. Particular attention is given to the characterisation of self-adjoint extensions of symmetric operators acting in a Hilbert space and, for elliptic operators, the realisation of such extensions in terms of boundary conditions. A good deal of material not previously available in book form, such as the treatment of the Schauder estimates, is included. Requiring only basic knowledge of measure theory and functional analysis, the book is accessible to graduate students and will be of interest to all researchers in partial differential equations. The reader will value its self-contained, thorough and unified presentation of the modern theory of elliptic operators.

The fractional Sobolev spaces studied in the book were introduced in the 1950s by Aronszajn, Gagliardo and Slobodeckij in an attempt to fill the gaps between the classical Sobolev spaces. They provide a natural home for solutions of a vast, and rapidly growing, number of questions involving differential equations and non-local effects, ranging from financial modelling to ultra-relativistic quantum mechanics, emphasising the need to be familiar with their fundamental properties and associated techniques. Following an account of the most basic properties of the fractional spaces, two celebrated inequalities, those of Hardy and Rellich, are discussed, first in classical format (for which a survey of the very extensive known results is given), and then in fractional versions. This book will be an Ideal resource for researchers and graduate students working on differential operators and boundary value problems.