The Kato Square Root Problem for mixed boundary conditions

We consider the negative Laplacian subject to mixed boundary conditions on a bounded domain. We prove under very general geometric assumptions that slightly above the critical exponent 1/2 its fractional power domains still coincide with suitable Sobolev spaces of optimal regularity. In combination with a reduction theorem recently obtained by the authors, this solves the Kato Square Root Problem for elliptic second order operators and systems in divergence form under the same geometric assumptions. Thereby we answer a question posed by J.L. Lions in 1962 [30]. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.