We prove decay rates for a vector-valued function f of a non-negative real
variable with bounded weak derivative, under rather general conditions on the
Laplace transform f^. This generalizes results of Batty-Duyckaerts
(2008) and other authors in later publications. Besides the possibility of
f^ having a singularity of logarithmic type at zero, one novelty in our
paper is that we assume f^ to extend to a domain to the left of the
imaginary axis, depending on a non-decreasing function M and satisfying a
growth assumption with respect to a different non-decreasing function K. The
decay rate is expressed in terms of M and K. We prove that the obtained
decay rates are essentially optimal for a very large class of functions M and
K. Finally we explain in detail how our main result improves known decay
rates for the local energy of waves on exterior domains.Comment: 37 pages. This is a significantly enhanced version of my paper "A
quantified Tauberian theorem and local decay of C0-semigroups" submitted to
arxiv in May 201