Jet vanishing orders and effectivity of Kohn's algorithm in dimension 3 (Q1654926)

The paper is concerned about providing effective bounds for the order of subellipticity in the subelliptic estimates for certain domains in $\mathbb C^3$. \par Let $\Omega \subset \mathbb C^n$ be a domain. For a point $p \in \partial \Omega$ a subelliptic estimate of order of subellipticity $\varepsilon > 0$ at $p \in \partial \Omega$ is an estimate of the form \[ \|u\|^2_\varepsilon \leq C (\|\bar \partial u\|^2+\|\bar \partial^* u\|^2+\|u\|^2), \] where $\|\cdot\|_\varepsilon$ and $\|\cdot\|$ are the tangential Sobolev norm of order $\varepsilon$ and the standard $L^2$-norm on $\Omega$ respectively, $u$ is any $(p,q)$-form in the domain of the adjoint operator $\bar \partial^*$ (with respect to the standard $L^2$-product on $\Omega$) of the $\bar \partial$-operator, which is smooth up to the boundary and has compact support in a fixed neighborhood $U$ of $p$ in the closure $\bar \Omega$, such that $U$ and the real constant $C > 0$ are independent of $u$. \par Subelliptic estimates and a bound on the order of subellipticity are important to deduce lower bounds on the Bergman metric [\textit{J. D. McNeal}, J. Funct. Anal. 108, No. 2, 361--373 (1992; Zbl 0777.31007)] or boundary regularity of the $\bar \partial$-Neumann problem, see [\textit{J. J. Kohn} and \textit{L. Nirenberg}, Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 18, 443--492 (1965; Zbl 0125.33302)], and has applications in the theory of mappings of domains and their boundary regularity [\textit{K. Diederich} and \textit{J. E. Fornaess}, Ann. Math. (2) 110, 575--592 (1979; Zbl 0394.32012)]. \par \textit{J. J. Kohn} [Acta Math. 142, 79--122 (1979; Zbl 0395.35069)] introduced an algorithm for \textit{subelliptic multipliers} to produce an increasing sequence of ideals $I_0 \subset I_1 \subset \cdots$ of smooth or analytic functions, such that a termination of the algorithm, which means that the constant function $1$ belongs to $I_k$ for some $k\in \mathbb N$, leads to a subelliptic estimate. \par In the case of domains $\Omega$ in $\mathbb C^3$ given by \[ \Omega = \left\{\text{Re}(z_{3}) < \sum_{j=1}^m |F_j(z_1,z_2)|^2 \right\}, \] where $F_1, \ldots, F_m$ are holomorphic functions vanishing at the origin, \textit{J. J. Kohn}'s result in [Acta Math. 142, 79--122 (1979; Zbl 0395.35069)] shows, that the algorithm terminates if and only if $\Omega$ is of finite D'Angelo type at the origin. \par Under the assumption that $\Omega$ is of finite D'Angelo type $\leq 2 T$ at the origin the authors prove that the order of subellipticity $\varepsilon$ satisfies \[ \varepsilon \geq \frac{1}{2^{T(T-1)+3} T^2(T-1)^3}. \] The proof is based on a variant of Kohn's algorithm and new invariants, the so-called jet contact order of a set of germs at $0$ of holomorphic mappings along a germ of a complex-analytic variety $(V,0)$ and the jet vanishing order of a set of germs of holomorphic mappings. The main technical lemma considers inductively defined Jacobians of holomorphic maps, whose jet order vanishing can be estimated by the vanishing orders of the initial multipliers. \par Moreover this procedure is illustrated by applying it to certain perturbations of an example of \textit{D. W. Catlin} and \textit{J. P. D'Angelo} [in: Complex analysis. Several complex variables and connections with PDE theory and geometry. Proceedings of the conference in honour of Linda Rothschild, Fribourg, Switzerland, July 7--11, 2008. Basel: Birkhäuser. 75--94 (2010; Zbl 1202.32027)].