Sharp growth rates for semigroups using resolvent bounds

We study growth rates for strongly continuous semigroups. We prove that a growth rate for the resolvent on imaginary lines implies a corresponding growth rate for the semigroup if either the underlying space is a Hilbert space, or the semigroup is asymptotically analytic, or if the semigroup is positive and the underlying space is an (Formula presented.)-space or a space of continuous functions. We also prove variations of the main results on fractional domains; these are valid on more general Banach spaces. In the second part of the article, we apply our main theorem to prove optimality in a classical example by Renardy of a perturbed wave equation which exhibits unusual spectral behavior.