Positive powers of the Laplacian: from hypersingular integrals to boundary value problems

Any positive power of the Laplacian is related via its Fourier symbol to a hypersingular integral with finite differences. We show how this yields a pointwise evaluation which is more flexible than other notions used so far in the literature for powers larger than 1; in particular, this evaluation can be applied to more general boundary value problems and we exhibit explicit examples. We also provide a natural variational framework and, using an asymptotic analysis, we prove how these hypersingular integrals reduce to polyharmonic operators in some cases. Our presentation aims to be as self-contained as possible and relies on elementary pointwise calculations and known identities for special functions.