In Tao's "Recent progress on the restriction conjecture"

On page 53, Tao introduced the local smoothing conjecture: let $u(t,x)$ be the solution to the wave equation $u_{tt}=\Delta u$, $u(0,x)=f(x)$ and $u_t(0,x)=0$ in $n$ spatial dimensions, and the conjecture for $\epsilon>0$

$$||u||_{L^p([1,2]\times\mathbb{R}^n)}\leq C_{p,\epsilon} ||(1+\sqrt{-\Delta})^\epsilon f||_{L^p(\mathbb{R}^n)}$$

My question is: what is the meaning of $(1+\sqrt{-\Delta})^\epsilon f$? This seems to be a standard notation but I can't find a place where it is explained.