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When I first saw the definition of general Sobolev spaces with real exponent I immediately got interested in the following problem: pick several of your favourite irregular functions/distributions and now ask how singular are they, i.e. what is the largest exponent $s$ such that this function/distribution belongs to $H^s$. For simplicity let me restrict to the interval $[-\pi,\pi]$ where the critical $s$ such that $f \in H^{-s}$ (note the minus sign) can be found by investigating the convergence of the series $\sum_{n} \frac{|c_n|^2}{n^{2s}}$ where $c_n$ are Fourier coefficients.

Example 1 Let us take $f=\chi_{[0,1]}$. Then after some computations this boils down to the convergence of $\sum_{n} \frac{\sin^2{n}}{n^{2+2s}}$ and thus we get that $f \in H^s$ for $s<\frac12$ but $f \notin H^\frac{1}{2}$.

Example 2 If we take the Dirac delta distribution $\delta$ then the sequence of Fourier coefficients is constant and one gets that $\delta \in H^s$ for $s<-\frac12$ but $\delta \notin H^{\frac12}$.

Example 3 Let us now take $f(x)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{|x|}}$. Then $f \notin L^2=H^0$ but $f \in H^s$ for $s<0$

So for these examples the critical exponents are $s_0=\frac12,-\frac12,0$ respectively. In all these cases $f \notin H^{s_0}$ but $f \in H^s$ for $s<s_0$.

Question Is it possible that for a critical exponent as above in fact $f \in H^{s_0}$ (but $f \notin H^s$ for $s>s_0$?)?

This should follow from general facts concerning Dirichlet series but I'm not an expert in this field and I will be happy if someone could give me an answer

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  • $\begingroup$ There seems to be a wrong sign on the exponent $s$ in several places. I was about to edit it but perhaps you can first proof read carefully the formulas and check where you want to divide by $n^{2s}$ and where you want to multiply? $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 24, 2021 at 16:54
  • $\begingroup$ Also, it seems that by $H^s$ you mean $H^{s,2}$? See "Sobolev spaces with non-integer $k$" in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sobolev_space for the standard notation. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 24, 2021 at 16:54
  • $\begingroup$ I corrected the issues with minus sign $\endgroup$
    – truebaran
    Commented Oct 24, 2021 at 17:06

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Consider the distribution with Fourier series $$\sum_{n \ge 1} \frac{\cos(nt)}{n^{1/2+\alpha} \log n} \,.$$ This will be in the Sobolev space $H^s=H^{s,2}$ for $s \le \alpha$ but not for $s>\alpha$.

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  • $\begingroup$ Indeed, it works-thank you! $\endgroup$
    – truebaran
    Commented Oct 24, 2021 at 17:22

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