Rate of convergence to self-similarity for the fragmentation equation in L^1 spaces

In a recent result by the authors (ref. [1]) it was proved that solutions of the self-similar fragmentation equation converge to equilibrium exponentially fast. This was done by showing a spectral gap in weighted \L^2\ spaces of the operator defining the time evolution. In the present work we prove that there is also a spectral gap in weighted \L^1\ spaces, thus extending exponential convergence to a larger set of initial conditions. The main tool is an extension result in ref. [4]