Positive harmonic functions that vanish on a subset of a cylindrical surface (Q2390988): Difference between revisions

A Denjoy domain in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) is a domain \(D\) such that \(\mathbb{R} ^{n}\backslash D\) is contained in a hyperplane, say \(\mathbb{R}^{n-1}\times \{0\}\). \textit{M. Benedicks} [Ark. Mat. 18, 53--72 (1980; Zbl 0455.31009)] established a harmonic measure condition that describes when \(D\) inherits the potential theoretic character of the half-space \(\mathbb{R}^{n-1}\times (0,\infty )\), in the sense that there is a minimal harmonic function \(u\) on \(D\) such that \(u(x)\geq x_{n}^{+}\). Recently, \textit{T. Carroll} and the reviewer [Ark. Mat. 46, 271--283 (2008; Zbl 1146.31005)] showed that a Wiener-type criterion can be used instead. Now let \(U\) denote the infinite cylinder \(B^{\prime }\times \mathbb{R}\), where \(B^{\prime }\) is the unit ball in \(\mathbb{R}^{n-1}\), and let \(h_{+}(x^{\prime },x_{n})=e^{\alpha x_{n}}\phi (x^{\prime })\), where \(\alpha \) denotes the square root of the first eigenvalue of \(-\Delta \) on \(B^{\prime }\) and \(\phi \) is the corresponding eigenfunction normalised by \(\phi (0)=1\). This paper investigates domains \(\Omega \) such that \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\backslash \Omega \) is contained in \(\partial U\), and investigates when \(\Omega \) inherits the potential theoretic character of \(U\), in the sense that there is a minimal harmonic function \(u\) on \(\Omega \) such that \(u\geq h_{+}\) on \(\Omega \). The authors characterise this situation in terms of a Benedicks-type harmonic measure criterion, and also in terms of a Wiener-type criterion. The conditions take a distinctive form in three dimensions due to the delicate potential theory of \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\backslash \overline{U}\) (see the reviewer's paper ``Potential theory in the exterior of a cylindrical set'', Indiana Univ. Math. J., to appear). Two applications are given. The first is a quantitative form of a recent construction of the reviewer and \textit{W. Hansen} [Adv. Math. 214, 417--436 (2007; Zbl 1147.31003)] concerning minimal harmonic functions associated with an irregular boundary point. The second shows that there are bounded domains \(\omega \) on which the positive \(L^{p}\)-integrable harmonic functions are not dense (with respect to uniform convergence on compacta) among all positive harmonic functions for any \(p\in (0,1]\). For the case where \(p=1\) such domains had previously been shown to exist in the plane by \textit{T. Sjödin} [Potential Anal. 27, No. 3, 271--280 (2007; Zbl 1130.31002)], whose construction was based on the use of conformal mappings.