It was proved by Komatsu that
if S(⋅) is a strongly continuous semigroup in a Banach space E then the space
of all u ∈ E such that t → S(t)u possesses a fractional derivative of order
α ≥ 0 coincides with the domain of the α-th power of (a translate of) the
infinitesimal generator A. We prove here that a similar relationship holds
for strongly continuous cosine functions, at least if E belongs to a class
including Hilbert spaces; in general Banach spaces only an inclusion can be
assured.